Hyderabad: Students seeking admissions or studying in professional colleges in Andhra Pradesh and Telangana are caught in a crossfire between the two Telugu-speaking states over reimbursement of fees.
While the Supreme Court’s direction early this week to complete admissions in engineering colleges by August 31 came as a relief to the students, the lack of clarity over fee reimbursement is still causing anxiety to thousands who passed the Engineering, Agriculture and Medical Common Entrance Test.
Telangana’s decision to scrap the existing fee reimbursement scheme and extend financial assistance to only those students whose parents were residents of Telangana as of November 1, 1956, has put many in a quandary.
The two states are locked in a bitter wrangle over many issues since bifurcation in June, but the tussle over reimbursement of fees is proving serious as it affects the future of thousands of students.
The Congress government in undivided Andhra Pradesh introduced a scheme in 2008 to reimburse the fees of students belonging to economically weaker sections of society. The annual burden on the state exchequer was about Rs50bn.
Describing the scheme as a ‘big scam’, the Telangana government scrapped it. Chief Minister K Chandrasekhara Rao said many colleges and students exist only on paper to claim the money. He instead introduced a new scheme called Financial Assistance to Students of Telangana (FAST) and made it clear that the government will not pay the fees of students of other states (read Andhra Pradesh) studying in Hyderabad or other parts of Telangana.
Under FAST, only students whose parents were residents of Telangana in 1956, when Telangana was merged with then Andhra State to form Andhra Pradesh, will be treated as locals.
“We will pay fee of our children, you pay yours”, is the argument of KCR, who has also rejected his Andhra Pradesh counterpart N Chandrababu Naidu’s offer to pay 50 percent of the fee.
Hitting back at KCR, Naidu said he can’t decide anybody’s nativity. “The nativity has to be decided in accordance with the Constitution of India,” said Naidu, who claimed that nearly 950,000 students in both the states are suffering.
The row has threatened to delay admissions as the Telangana government has filed a petition in the Supreme Court seeking time till October to complete the counselling, saying it lacked staff to verify the antecedents of students.
During the hearing, the Supreme Court observed on August 4 that admissions in engineering colleges were to be completed by August 31 as per the original schedule. It also advised both the states not to play politics over the future of students.
The final orders are to be pronounced on August 11.
The Andhra Pradesh State Council for Higher Education (APSCHE) issued a notification on July 30 for admissions and the process began on August 7. However, the process has not started in Telangana and the government maintains that it lacks adequate staff for verification of students’ certificates.
APSCHE argues that it is the competent authority to conduct admissions in both the states in accordance with the Andhra Pradesh Reorganisation Act, 2014, which says that the existing admission process and quotas in both the states will continue for 10 years.
The Telangana government, however, maintains that it has the full authority to conduct admissions into colleges located in Telangana.
“Let them go ahead with the admissions in their colleges but as far as Telangana is concerned we will start the process after the Supreme Court pronounces its verdict on our petition,” said Telangana Education Minister G Jagadish Reddy.
To pre-empt any move by APSCHE, the Telangana government last week floated its own higher education council to conduct admissions.
IANS
