Hyderabad: The Telangana state government has constituted a five-member committee of senior officials to finalise guidelines for implementation of financial assistance to poor students under the newly launched FAST (Financial Assistance for Students of Telangana) scheme.
Ignoring protests from neighbouring Andhra Pradesh, the government has also made it clear that only those students whose parents were bona fide residents of Telangana as on 1-11-1956 will be eligible for FAST.
The five-member co-mmittee comprises principal secretary to government, scheduled castes development, ST, BC welfare departments, secretary, higher education department, principal secretary, panchayat raj and rural development, principal secretary, general administration department and secretary to government, law department. It will submit a report to government at the earliest.
“FAST shall be made applicable to all students pursuing ongoing studies and fresh admissions and whose parents were bona fide residents of Telangana as on 1-11-1956. It shall come into force from the current academic year 2014-15,” said chief secretary Dr Rajiv Sharma.
“The detailed guidelines of the above scheme for implementation during the current academic year 2014-15 will be finalised by a committee of principal secretaries/secretaries and submitted to the government for appr-oval,” he added.
With a view to enable the students of Telangana to get financial assistance, the Telangana government has proposed to lay down the fundamental principles based on which this policy will operate.
Certificates for bona fide residence will be issued by the revenue department after seeking information from the applicants through a detailed format to ascertain the bona fide residence status of the parents/grandparents of the students.
The department of scheduled caste development (eduction) is dealing with the issue.
While Telangana Chief Minister K. Chandrasekhar Rao insists that only poor Telangana students would be eligible for the fee reimbursement scheme, Andhra Pradesh Chief Minister N.
Chandrababu Naidu, is demanding fee reimbursement for all.
Mr Rao, however, has rejected his counterpart’s demand.
Students in Telangana include those who are studying post Matric courses based on admissions done in the past and also students who will be seeking admissions to post Matric courses during the current year 2014-15.
