Fee reimbursement scheme not to benefit many

Hyderabad: Unlike previous years, the fee reimbursement scheme might come not with just the Telangana- nativity rider but a whole lot of other conditions. It is learnt that the government is working on filtering students who benefit from the scheme and the scheme has far lesser number of beneficiaries than earlier. On the other side, the AP government has also not clearly stated its conditions for the scheme.

Engineering colleges are already facing problems with about Rs 2,500 crores of arrears towards the scheme already pending.

What is certain is that these arrears will not be paid anytime soon with the additional problem of the division of the arrears to be paid by the two governments. Engineering college managements also know this. Sources say that while the governments will not scrap the scheme altogether, they will refine it so much that very few students actually are eligible to avail of it.

It is an open secret that the scheme was also intended to save ailing engineering colleges. “Students from backward areas are in turn paid money and asked to join engineering colleges. Now if colleges don’t get money from the government, how will they run their institutions?” asked a senior education official.

“If the scheme is not there, then only students who can pay will only join.” Dr P. Rajeshwar Reddy, general secretary, Consortium of Private Engineering College Managements of Telangana, said adding, “We are not expecting the fee reimbursement arrears to be paid anytime soon according to indications from the government. The financial situation of colleges is very bad.”

Some colleges have even withheld certificates of backward area students whose fee the government has not paid while professors and lecturers haven’t been paid for months.

Engineering college managements of AP also met chief minister N. Chandrababu Naidu recently but his response to them was, at best, lukewarm.

They also say that many students are migrating to other states for higher studies because of the haphazard situation of colleges in the state.

“We are reeling under debt and the government has to help. But we are not sure what they will do. About 75,000 students are migrating to other states because of the doubts here. Backward students go for arts or commerce courses and other students pursue engineering elsewhere because they don’t want to be affected,” said a member of the Consortium of Private Engineering College Management of AP.