Hyderabad, July 01: The Rosaiah government will continue the fee reimbursement scheme but with a lot of riders. The Cabinet sub-committee, which went into the controversial issue, has finalised its recommendations which would be placed before the Cabinet on Thursday.
The one condition that the government intends to implement strictly is the limit on family income — Rs 1 lakh per annum.
Though this stipulation existed even in the past, it was not implemented effectively leading to a large number of students — over 20 lakh — availing the benefit of fee reimbursement.
Henceforth, students will have to submit an income certificate along with a declaration of assets owned by the family. Fee reimbursement scheme will not be applicable to students from families which own a four-wheeler (car). In case students or their parents provide false information, the State government will take action against them apart from recovering the entire amount paid under the scheme.
Sources said the ministers had also recommended tightening norms for colleges and categorising them into different grades based on the facilities available. This will also be one of the guidelines for fee reimbursement.
Colleges have virtually held the government to ransom on the reimbursement issue by threatening to close the institutions if the backlog payment is not cleared.
The sub-committee is also said to be in favour of limiting the benefit of reimbursement to only those students who get seats in engineering/ medical college under the convenor quota (on the basis of merit). Also, the benefit will be stopped if a student fails to clear the test twice.
Members of the sub-committee, who met once again on Wednesday for final vetting of the report, refused to disclose the details. All that they said was that the stated objective of the programme — free education to meritorious poor students –will not be diluted at any cost. At the same time, it was necessary to plug loopholes to ensure that the undeserving do not get the benefit, they said.
Higher Education Minister D Sridhar Babu and Technical Education Minister MV Ramana Rao found fault with the college managements which alleged that Chief Minister K Rosaiah was conspiring to scrap the scheme.
The Ministers said they knew the “invisible forces” which are trying to gain political mileage and would expose them at an appropriate time.
–Agencies