Although the government assured to release funds for fees reimbursement scheme immediately to prevent the educational institutes from closing down the colleges at the fag end of the academic year, the ministers appears to be very angry with their arm-twisting tactics. The outburst of finance minister Anam Ramanarayana Reddy and social welfare minister Pithani Satyanarayana against the college managements during a review on verification/sanction of post-matric scholarships with welfare officers, principals and verification officers here on Wednesday stood as a testimony for the mood of the state government.
The duo exposed various misdeeds of some institutions during the review. Mr Reddy alleged that funds to the extent of Rs.1500 crore to Rs.2000 crore released for the fee reimbursement scheme was subjected to misuse during the last two years. He said that some colleges have opted for all kinds of malpractices to pocket the money released for the scheme.
According to Mr Reddy, as many as 16,000 colleges were receiving the benefit under the scheme initially and the number came down to 11,200 after online system of registration and disbursement was introduced. This is an indicator for the volume of misuse. There were many instances where name of the same student was found in the records of three colleges and they used to pay Rs.14,000 to the student for allowing using his name.
Some students pursuing M. Tech with aid provided by the government have been working as lecturers in B.Ed Colleges elsewhere and drawing salaries with the connivance of colleges where they are enrolled. Even while fleecing the government with fake records, professional colleges have been demanding to increase the present annual fee of Rs.34,000. Incidentally, majority of colleges do not have faculty with required qualifications as well as infrastructure yet they find fault with the government.
Referring to many such irregularities on the part of the colleges, Mr Reddy alleged that the colleges, which are thriving becau-se of fee reimbursement scheme, raise objections when the state governme-nt wants to inspect the colleges stressing that only AICTE has the powers. He questioned the rationale behind continuing the ad-missions till January igno-ring the cut off date. He alleged that only two lakh students were enrolled out of 26 lakh students eligible for the scheme till Janu-ary 21 and the number increased to 13 lakh now.
Mr Reddy blamed the colleges for their slackness in enrolling the names. He reminded that the government also requires time to verify the registrations and release the funds. He told the managements that the government has its own mechanism such vigilance squads to verify the misdeeds of the colleges and initiate action.
Mr Satyanarayana alleged that colleges are delaying the online registration process related to fees scheme. He also reeled out the irregularities committed by the colleges.
Earlier, social welfare commissioner B. Udayal-akshmi elicited information over the online registration process with the representatives of the colleges and gave them tips to overcome the technical problems they were facing in uploading the data.
Nellore town MLA M. Sridharkrishna Reddy, MLC Vakati Narayana Re-ddy were present among others.