Hyderabad: Finance minister Etala Rajender on Wednesday said that the government owed Rs 400 crore fee reimbursement arrears for students for the 2016-17 academic year and the application process was going on for 2017-18.
He said of the total payment of Rs 3,200 crore, the government had cleared Rs 2,896 crore.
Opposition parties lashed out at government for failing to clear arrears of 13 lakh students in time due to which the colleges had withheld their certificates.
TPCC chief N. Uttam Kumar Reddy said the government had mo-ney to clear thousands of crores of bills to contractors in time but no funds to clear fee arrears of students.
“You have concern for contractors because they pay 6 per cent commission to you on contracts. You have no concern for students from poorer sections, who rely on this scheme to pursue higher studies. Students are losing higher education and job opportunities even after completion of their courses as their certificates are withheld by colleges,” Mr Reddy said.
“The number of colleges and enrolment of students in Telangana has come down drastically in the past three years due to your misrule,” he said.
Mr Rajender refuted these allegations saying that the tradition of clearing fee arrears of the academic year in the subsequent year was set by previous Congress government.
"The arrears are being cleared in this manner since 2007 when the Congress government extended the scheme to students from all categories based on income ceiling unlike earlier when it was only for SCs and STs. This is because the admissions in a particular year start in June and stretch till December. We get applications later, which will take 2-3 months for processing and approval. There is no other go,” Mr Rajender added.
