The state government on Wednesday subtly warned the managements of private engineering colleges to desist from using the delay in release of fee reimbursement funds to embarrass the government.
Talking to media persons on Wednesday, Congress MLC and senior leader P Venkat Rao, official spokesperson Tulasi Reddy, and Government Whip Sailajanath, all described the managements of these colleges as 'ungrateful'.
They said that these colleges were on the brink of shutting down due to funds when former CM late Y S Rajasekhara Reddy had announced the fee reimbursement and scholarships schemes. They're so rich now that they're buying hundreds of acres of lands in the name of the colleges, the senior leaders said.
Venkat Rao agreed that the release of fee reimbursement funds was delayed by some months, but said that the managements of the private colleges had taken undue advantage of this delay to blackmail and threaten the government by saying that they would shut down their institutions.
He questioned these boards as to what they had done to further the cause of the poor in the education sector, in spite of the government releasing thousands of crores of rupees to them as reimbursement of fee and scholarships.
The senior Congress leader said private colleges do not offer free education to even a single poor student. He warned that if they do not start to provide free seats to poor students, economically-backward students will soon start pelting stones at the colleges as a mark of protest.
Venkat Rao requested the government to set up a committee to probe the source of money of these engineering colleges, since they are on a land-buying spree.
Tulasi Reddy said it was only in Andhra Pradesh that fee reimbursement scheme and scholarships to its students were given on such a large scale. He said that in Karnataka, scholarship funds that were due in 2003 and 2004 were being released now, and remarked that on the other hand, a delay of just some months was leading to protests in the state.