Publicity first, Welfare next! 2,800 crore for CM Rachchabanda, 600 crore student fee reimbursement on priority basis Grades

A.P State government plans to grade engineering colleges in to A,b.C,D...

Supreme Court on Monday questioned the AP government for not honoring its commitment to reimburse the fees of students from poor and socially weaker sections, and gave it a week to come back with a positive response. In response to the SC censure on fee reimbursement, the state government clarified that it would resolve the fee reimbursement issue within a month and the delay was only due to “verification process”. State government introduced the scheme in 2008, the requirement was only 1,000 crore. But now it has surged to 3,450 crore. It was found that some colleges and students misused the scheme by claiming the fee multiple times under different names.
The A.P government can arrange `2,800 crore for the Rachchabanda programme, there is no reason why it cannot do the same for the fee reimbursement scheme. The A.P state government which is in deep trouble over the fee reimbursement arrears that amount to nearly 3,500 crore, is once again talking about a “grading” system for engineering colleges apparently to rein in the college managements. To this effect, it has directed the high-power committee set up for the purpose to grade the colleges within two weeks.
The government had appointed a three-member high-power committee in August last year to grade the colleges based on their faculty and infrastructure after it received several complaints that majority of the engineering colleges in the state had failed to comply with the AICTE norms despite running for several years.
Sources said that the government wants to grade engineering colleges into four categories. Top colleges will be graded “category A” and average colleges “category B”. The remaining below-average colleges will be graded as “C” and the rest will fall under the D category which are “unfit” to run classes.
The government plans to release fee reimbursement arrears on priority basis to colleges depending on the grades. While A-grade colleges will get 100 per cent of the arrears, the B-grade ones will get 50 per cent and the C-grade colleges will get 25 per cent arrears immediately. The D-grade colleges will be issued notices to comply with the minimum norms to claim the funds.
As per estimates, less than 70 colleges out of 700 engineering colleges in the state fall under “category A”. A major chunk of the colleges are sub-standard and can be “checked” while releasing the funds.