Hyderabad: Faced with the wrath of student organisations for neglecting students and youth since coming to power in 2014, the ruling Telangana Rashtra Samithi (TRS) is going all out to woo students and youth in the run-up to the 2023 Assembly elections.
The party's leadership is making an effort to reach out to young voters between the ages of 18 and 30. The government hopes to gain the support of government job aspirants between the ages of 18 and 49 by raising the maximum age limit from 34 to 44 years for a two-year period, as BCs, SCs, and STs have further relaxation of five years until they reach the age of 49.
Among the major decisions taken by the government recently to garner the support of students and youth are a series of job notifications to fill over 80,000 vacancies, timely release of funds for scholarships and fee reimbursement, and the establishment of a large number of residential colleges and study circles all at once from this year to train students for competitive and recruitment exams for free.
According to party sources, the importance placed on students and youth can be gauged by the fact that finance minister T.Harish Rao held a six-hour meeting with senior department officials on July 4 to expedite the process of clearing long-pending arrears of scholarships and fee reimbursement to students. Following this meeting, Chief Minister K.Chandrasekhar Rao held a seven-hour review meeting on Tuesday to discuss the opening of a large number of new residential educational institutions at the intermediate and graduation levels, as well as the establishment of four study circles in each of the 33 districts to train students for state-level and national-level competitive/recruitment exams beginning this academic year (2022-23).
Harish Rao directed finance officials to release Rs 363 crore immediately to clear pending scholarships of students belonging to BC, SC, ST, EBC, Minorities and Physically-challenged. Chief Minister K. Chandrasekhar Rao issued directions to Chief Secretary Somesh Kumar to take steps immediately to start new residential educational institutions and study circles across the state.
The TRS faced the wrath of opposition parties and student organisations for neglecting students and youth since coming to power in 2014 by not issuing adequate job notifications to fill vacancies in government departments and keeping payment of scholarships and fee reimbursement pending for years. Opposition Congress and BJP held several protest rallies against TRS government failing to fill jobs, release funds for scholarships, fee reimbursement etc along with various students' organisations.
The government has already issued notifications to fill over 35,000 vacancies since May this year out of the total 80,000 vacancies it had announced to fill in March this year. The government has decided to release the notifications for balance vacancies in a phase manner and complete the entire recruitment drive for 80,000 posts before the 2023 Assembly polls.
