Students stage protest demanding hike in scholarships

Dharna Chowk: Students staged a protest at Dharna Chowk on Thursday demanding that the State government hike scholarships being given to Intermediate, degree, engineering, medicine and PG students based on the inflation. The protest organised by BC Welfare Association, saw participation of a large number of students from twin cities.

Speaking during the protest, R Krishnaiah, president of BC Welfare Association, alleged that Chief Minister K Chandrashekar Rao was deliberately ignoring education and was giving priority to distributing sheep, buffaloes, fish so that they continue to live on their traditional professions. While Rs 10,000 crore has been allocated to distribution of sheep, the government is not ready allocate Rs 2,000 crore for scholarships, he said.

Also, the government failed to fill vacant lecturers' posts in the state which had an adverse impact on education, he alleged. Similarly, most of the assistant professor posts in 13 universities of the State have been lying vacant which had considerable impact on university research programmes, he lamented. Krishnaiah expressed fear that most of the degree and PG certificates may lose recognition in other countries due to government apathy towards education.

He also alleged that the State government had been ignoring BC students as government had failed to clear fee reimbursement amounts for BC students. He demanded the state government to increase the scholarship amount being given to intermediate, degree and PG courses from the Rs 5,000 to Rs 20,000.

BC leaders, BC youth association president Neela Venkatesh, SC/ST/BC hostel students association chairman Gujja Krishna, state secretary of BC students association Chandrashekhar Goud, Mahesh Goud and others participated in the protest.