Hyderabad, January 14: The private engineering colleges today expressed serious concern over the delay in release of funds by the state government under fee reimbursement scheme.
The representatives of the Consortium of Private Engineering Colleges Managements Association (CPECMA) today urged chief minister N Kiran Kumar Reddy to release the funds amounting to about Rs 3,000 crore at the earliest as they are facing serious financial problems.
The CPECMA delegation today called on the chief minister at his Camp Office here and informed that the state government did not release funds pertaining to fee reimbursement scheme for the academic year of 2010-11 despite its promise to release them every quarter.
According to CPECMA, about two lakh students are pursuing engineering courses in about 700 engineering colleges across the state. As most of the students joined the colleges under the fee reimbursement and scholarships scheme, the delay in releasing funds is causing serious financial problems to the college managements.
“We are unable to meet monthly expenses including payment of bank loans, maintenance of colleges and salaries to our faculty. Unless the government releases the funds immediately, it would be difficult for us to run the colleges,” Malakonda Reddy, president of the CPECMA said.
The state government has cleared all the arrears but could not release funds for the current academic year. The chief minister assured the delegation that he would see to it that at least half of the funds were released immediately.
Meanwhile the officials said the government has decided not to release the funds without verifying the details of colleges and students who applied for fee reimbursement and scholarship schemes. Preliminary inquiries revealed that the amount siphoned off by bogus colleges and students could run into hundreds of crores of rupees.
The irregularities came out after several colleges did not respond to the mandatory registration with the government for becoming eligible to the scheme.
–Agencies