MLAs of BJP and the Congress staged a walkout from the Telangana Legislative Assembly on Tuesday reffering to State government’s failure to give a convincing reply on the closure of engineering colleges in the State. According to Deputy CM (Education) out of 176,770 engineering seats in the State, nearly one lakh are lying vacant.
However, he said that the Education Department had no report of engineering colleges misusing the fee reimbursement scheme. He also denied reports that nearly 80 engineering colleges are going to be closed from the next academic year.
Meanwhile, the Deputy CM made it clear that the government did not intend to close the colleges, but wanted to make them follow all the norms. He said the State government is taking action against those colleges who are letting down the image of Telangana.
He said 163 colleges, offering 814 courses, were de-recognised by the JNTU for violating norms. However, the managements approached the court and on Supreme Court’s directions a fact-finding committee was formed. He said the government would speak to existing students and take a final decision.
BJP MLA G Kishan Reddy pointed out that while the government was targeting private colleges, but even the government colleges did not have 650 faculty members and there was no Vice-Chancellor in most of the universities. He also accused the government of not releasing funds under Fee Reimbursement Scheme and wanted to know the name of colleges which are involved in fee reimbursement scam.