Telangana study circles turn white elephants?

A whopping Rs.225 crore investment for setting up study circles to give free coaching to poor students for competitive exams has gone waste.

A confidential Government document has called these study circles as “white elephants” in Telangana. Though more than Rs 225 crore was spent on these study circles since 2007, not a single student from these circles has been selected for IAS in the last five years.

The government spends nearly Rs 3 crore per year to run each study circle. The circles have been set up at each district for BC, SCs and STs separately. In undivided Andhra Pradesh, these study circles had the capacity to train 50,000 students per year. After the bifurcation, TS has the capacity to train 30,000 students.

In 2010-11, 47 students were trained for the civils in TS, but none got selected. Similarly, 57 students were trained in 2011-12, 56 in 2012-13 and 60 in 2013-14, but none made it to the final selection list. They could not even make it to the interview stage, rued the Jogu Ramanna, Telangana minister for BC welfare.