HYDERABAD: Congress MP and TPCC president N. Uttam Kumar Reddy demanded that the state government immediately release fee reimbursement dues of Rs 3,270 crore pertaining to nearly 12 lakh students in state.
Addressing a press conference at Gandhi Bhavan on Friday, Uttam Kumar Reddy alleged that TRS government had ruined the entire education sector in Telangana ever since it came to power in 2014. There were dues of Rs 828 crore in 2020-21 while not a single rupee was released for the academic years 2021-22 and 2022-23. He said the state government owed Rs 3,270 crore to private colleges towards the fee reimbursement of over 12 lakh students of nearly 3,600 junior, engineering, degree, pharmacy and other professional and non-professional colleges.
“Students are neither getting scholarship nor tuition fee for the last two years. Many SC, ST and Minority students are unable to pursue higher studies. With the state government not clearing fee reimbursement dues, managements are unable to run their institutions. Consequently, about 20-30 per cent students have already dropped out from higher studies,” he said.
Uttam Kumar Reddy said the delay in the release of fee reimbursement was also increasing unemployment in the education sector.
Private colleges had nearly 1.25 lakh employees, including faculty members. Lakhs of others were getting indirect employment. At least 30,000 people were losing their livelihood every year due to non-release of fee reimbursement by the TRS government, Uttam Kumar Reddy said.
He said the state government did not release the entire Rs 3,497 crore which it announced would spend in the first phase of 'Mana Ooru, Mana Badi' to upgrade 9,123 out of over 26,000 schools. He said only administrative sanction was accorded for the amount, but it was reportedly not approved by the finance department.
Of the 538 sanctioned posts of mandal education officers (MEO), only 20 were filled.
Similarly, of 33 districts, there were district education officers (DEOs) for only 10 districts. Thousands of other posts including principal, headmaster, attender, etc., were still vacant, he said.
The Congress MP accused the Chandrashekar Rao government of not giving prominence to the education sector.
He said the spending on the education sector was brought down from 10.80 per cent of the total budget in 2014-15 to just 6.24 per cent in 2022-23. According to an RBI report, Telangana was at the bottom of the list of 29 states in terms of spending on education, he added.
Stating that the Congress was all set to return to power in the next Assembly elections, Uttam Kumar Reddy said the Congress government would restore the old system of fee reimbursement and scholarship.
TPCC disciplinary committee chairman G. Chinna Reddy, working president J. Geetha Reddy, senior vice president Zafar Javeed, official spokespersons Sudhir Reddy and D. Bhaskar Reddy, and Telangana State Private Educational Institutions’ Association president G. Satish were also present at the meeting.
