The Consortium of Engineering and Professional Colleges Management Associations of Andhra Pradesh convened an emergency general body meeting on Sunday to decide on the future course of action to mount pressure on the state government for payment of the fee arrears.
“We had met the Chief Minister on January 5 and had urged him to pay the arrears by February 5. Unfortunately, there has been no response till now. The government owes Rs 2,600 crore for this academic year of 2011-12. We have already waited eight months. There's only three months left for the current academic year to end but the government has not released a single rupee. We are not in a position either to run the colleges or pay salaries for the faculty and staff. The decision to close the colleges was taken since there was no other option,” said N. Ramesh, chairman of the consortium.
The consortium apologised to students and parents for its decision to close the colleges. “Our intention is not to trouble students and parents. The government has to take the responsibility for the loss of working days for students on account of closure of colleges. Even if we keep the colleges open, it's of no use as faculty and non-teaching staff in several colleges are not attending their duties due to non-payment of salaries for 3-4 months due to dearth of funds,” Mr Ramesh explained.
The consortium also alleged that the government had tried to "blackmail" the managements whenever they had asked for payment in the last two years. “The ministers and officials are threatening us with cancellation of college approvals citing lack of faculty and infrastructure as per All India Council of Technical Education (AICTE) norms. We welcome the government to inspect the colleges and cancel approvals if they did not comply with the norms. But they cannot blackmail us whenever we ask for the arrears,” he said.
Consortium general secretary K.V.K. Rao brushed aside claims of minister for social welfare Pitani Satyanarayana that the delay was due to the on-going verification process of students. “Despite our repeated requests, none of the verification officers have visited our colleges till now. The minister's claim that the verification is going on at present is totally false. Some officers informed us that they had oral instructions from the government to take up the verification process slowly as the government had no funds to pay,” Mr Rao said.
