K Chandrasekhar Rao takes U-turn, says fee sop for students impractical

Hyderabad: Chief Minister K. Chandrasekhar Rao took yet another U-turn on Wednesday, this time on his promise of a fee reimbursement scheme for students. Saying this is found to be impractical, Mr Rao cited demonetisation as one of the reasons for the change of mind on his part. Significantly, he also noted that numerous substandard colleges were siphoning off the government funds this way.

The Chief Minister had promised to “zero down” the scheme by clearing all previous fee arrears, while addressing the Assembly in March last year. Now, he made it clear that the government would instead implement the scheme “as it is”, meaning the way it was introduced by the former Congress government. “We have no plan to scrap the scheme,” he stressed.

Substandard colleges ‘ate up’ fee sops: K Chandrasekhar Rao
Mr Rao said the previous government got colleges and students habituated to live with fee arrears, year after year. The TRS government was just allowing a continuation of this practice.

“Yes, I admit that I myself made a statement in the Assembly that we will ‘zero down’ on the fee reimbursement scheme by clearing the arrears of the previous years. The idea was that from the new academic year (2016-17), the payments could be released on time without giving any scope for further arrears. But officials told me that my promise is impractical. This is because students submit applications and colleges register for the scheme through the year. These applications need to be verified to ascertain their genuineness, and it will take time,” Mr Rao said.

He said that previous governments had devised the scheme in such a way that arrears of the ongoing academic year were released in the subsequent year. “Everyone knows this. Colleges, students, officials and the political parties know this,” he said.