Andhra Pradesh Chief Minister N Chandrababu Naidu on Thursday announced that his government was ready to reimburse tuition fees for 58 percent of the students of professional courses, particularly engineering, and Telangana government should pay for the remaining 42 per cent.
“Both Andhra Pradesh and Telangana should together bear the burden of students’ fees. All are our children. Let them not be the victims of (state) division,” the AP Chief Minister said, in the backdrop of Telangana government’s flat refusal to bear the tuition fee burden of “Andhra students”.
It should be a win-win situation for all, Naidu said.
The AP State Council of Higher Education has estimated that the fee reimbursement scheme, launched by the erstwhile Y S Rajasekhara Reddy government in pre-bifurcation days, would cost Rs 4,000 crore.
Following the bifurcation, the Telangana government refused to reimburse fees of “Andhra students”.
“Only those students whose parents settled in Telangana before 1956 will be eligible for fee reimbursement,” Telangana Chief Minister K Chandrasekhar Rao said earlier.
The AP government has decided to challenge this stand in the court.
PTI