TS Govt will continue Fee Reimbursement scheme: KCR

Chief Minister K Chandrasekhar Rao on Wednesday said that the TRS Government would continue the Fee Reimbursement scheme and assured the students community not to panic over the delay in clearing the fee sops in the State.

 Replying to the short discussion in the Legislative Assembly on Fee reimbursement, scheme, Chandrasekhar Rao said that the State Government would continue the scheme in its original form. He accused the Opposition parties of creating confusion among the students by creating fuss with regard to the issue.

The Chief Minister took pot shots at the allegations of Opposition members that the TRS Government was not clearing fee sops thinking that the government would have to provide employment to the youth on their completion of education. He said that there are only three lakh jobs in the government sector and the government could not create employment to all the graduates passing out every year. He questioned the Congress and the TD as to how many jobs did they provide in their regimes.

Chandrasekhar Rao said when TRS came to power, there was Rs. 1880 crore Fee Reimbursement dues. He also reminded that the Congress Government had left the fee reimbursement dues every year. He said that the state government has allocated Rs 1487 crore under fee sops this year and added that Rs 4,687 crore were sanctioned till now for the scheme.

The Chief Minister listed out various measures the TRS Government had taken to stream line engineering education in the state. He said that the state government had conducted inspections of the engineering colleges only to plug out irregularities in the fee reimbursement scheme. He said that the State Government would act against the college managements for violating rules and reiterated that the state government would continue the fee reimbursement scheme and appealed the students’ community not to worry over the issue.

Earlier, initiating the debate, SC Development Minister G. Jagadish Reddy informed that the 6,843 educational institutions were getting Fee Reimbursement. They include 1293 government and 5550 private institutions. Out of the total Fee Reimbursement amount, private educational institutions are getting 90.18% and the rest 9.82% is being paid to government institutions.

The minister, however, did not specify as to when the dues will be cleared. He said that the demonitisation of big notes had an impact on State's financial position and therefore, the clearance of dues was delayed.