Government to clear fee arrears soon

Hyderabad: Chief Minister K Chandrashekar Rao on Wednesday assured the students and parents that the government would retain ‘Fee Reimbursement Scheme’ (FRS) and would try to clear all dues in the shortest possible time.

Replying to a short discussion on the issue in Assembly, KCR said the government was determined to protect the prospects of students and it had not been considering it a burden.

He said at the same time, one should understand that it would not be possible to allocate some fixed amount in the budget since there was constant change in demand.

It was a dynamic scheme and adjustments need to be made from time to time.

It involved several issues like checking of attendance and passing before releasing the tuition fee.

He said the amount needed for the scheme was around Rs 2,500 crores and it was not a big burden on the government.

KCR made it clear that there was no crisis in the education sector.

Some managements had closed their institutions voluntarily as they were unable to meet the standards set by the UGC and AICTE.

He said when he convened a meeting with the managements of the private colleges, the latter felt that meeting the standards set by UGC and AICTE was not possible and hence they wanted to be allowed to close the institutions, he said.

However, the arrears arising out of delay in non-payment of fee reimbursement amount was employed as a tool by the opposition parties to corner the government.

Only roles would change. Players remain the same. If Congress was in power, TDP protests and vice versa. Now both of them were criticising my government, KCR said.

He said the government has already released Rs 1,487 crore during this academic year towards FRS and so far Rs 4,687 crore had been paid in the past three years in the form of arrears and fresh releases.

Out of the 6,843 institutions registered for the FRS scheme, 90 per cent belong to private managements.

If the scheme was stopped it would be impossible for the government to establish as much number of institutions.

Stating that there should be rationality in establishing the educational institutions, the Chief Minister wondered whether the State required 370 engineering colleges.

As many as 36,000 engineering graduates had appeared for examinations conducted for the posts of constable and Home Guards. It showed the gravity of the issue.

About 42,000 students were passing BeD every year and seek government jobs and providing government jobs to all of them was not possible.

There was a need to assess the domestic needs of the state in terms of engineers, doctors and other employees. It would not be possible to provide lakhs of jobs to the youth.