Telangana agriculture students pay lakhs for Maharashtra seats

Hyderabad: Lack of enough seats in Telangana for pursuing under graduation and post graduation courses in Agriculture and allied fields is forcing students from the state to pay lakhs of rupees for admission in private agriculture colleges in Maharashtra.

In Telangana, the Professor Jayashankar Telangana State University (PJTSAU), which is located at Rajendra Nagar in Hyderabad, and its constituent colleges in Jagtial, Aswaraopet and Palem, which together offer 409 seats in B.Sc. Agriculture, are the only options for those who want to pursue UG course in Agriculture.

In comparison there are around 6,480 seats in government and 1,892 in 66 private agriculture colleges on offer for B.Sc. Agriculture in Maharashtra.

Apart from this, Maharashtra offers a wide variety of courses in UG level like B.Sc. in Horticulture, Agri Biotechnology and Animal Husbandry apart from BBA in Agriculture.

A trend which has emerged in Telangana is that private education consultants offer help to students in securing management quota seats in private colleges in Maharashtra in which the "consultants" and the private colleges both earn commissions ranging in lakhs of rupees.

Consultants from Hyderabad revealed that to secure management quota seats in a private agriculture college in Maharashtra for pursuing B.Sc. Agriculture, students are charged at least Rs 8,00,000 for the three-year course by the consultants whereas the prescribed fee is Rs 1,95,000 per year by the Maharashtra Council of Agricultural Education and Research.

Some students are even duped into paying Rs 10,00,000 or more. Mr J. Kalyan, chairman of Telangana Vidyarthi Nirudyoga JAC said, “Telangana should take action against consultants who are duping students and charging lakhs of rupees. It should also immediately allow well-known private educational institutions to conduct UG and PG courses in Agriculture as there is a huge demand for it in the state.”