India: KCR rejects Naidu’s fee sharing proposal

Hyderabad: Telangana Chief Minister K Chandrasekhar Rao has entirely rejected the attempt of his Andhra Pradesh counterpart N Chandrababu Naidu to make Telangana share the burden of the fee reimbursement scheme.

Reacting to Naidu’s offer that Andhra Pradesh would bear 58 per cent of the scheme if Telangana paid 42 per cent of the fees, KCR said that it was not possible. He said that the Telangana government will follow the guidelines of the Supreme Court on this issue.

“We are not willing to pay the fee of non-local students. If we pay the fee of Andhra Pradesh students, then other states will also make the same demand for the students studying in Telangana,” KCR said on Friday. He was addressing a meeting of revenue department officials in Hyderabad.

KCR said that only eligible students will have their fees reimbursed and he asked officials to be cautious about issuing nativity, caste and income certificates.

“If you issue [the] wrong certificates, stringent action will be taken,” the Chief Minister said. “The mistakes committed by previous governments will not be repeated [in] my government.”

He said that not a single genuine Telangana student will be made to suffer over this issue.

On the scheme of allotting three acres of land for every Dalit family, the Chief Minister said that he was not in a hurry and the scheme will be implemented carefully to make it great success.

Earlier, Naidu told the media in Hyderabad that students were suffering because of Telangana government’s move to replace the fee reimbursement scheme with Financial Assistance for Students of Telangana or Fast.

“Several students have already left for other states or [are] leaving because of the inordinate delay in counselling for admission in engineering and medical colleges,” Naidu said.

Referring to the division of liabilities between the two states, Naidu said the Telangana government can pay 42 per cent of the fees of Andhra students studying in Telangana and the Andhra government will pay the remainder.

Naidu pleaded with KCR not to treat Andhra Pradesh as an enemy state and not to drag the issue any further. “I want both the states to prosper,” he said.

Apart from KCR, his two other key ministers, his son K Taraka Rama Rao and nephew T Harish Rao, have also come down heavily on Naidu’s offer.

“It is nothing but political arm twisting,” said Harish Rao.

“TRS government is clear on paying 100 per cent fee of its students. Similarly Andhra Pradesh should pay the fee of its students,” said Taraka Rama Rao, the minister for information technology.

The Telangana state government maintains that if it pays the fees for all the students studying in engineering, medical and other courses, it will put a burden of Rs40 billion (Dh2.4 billion) on the state. Hence, it was planning to change the scheme to plug loopholes and stop misuse of the scheme. It argues that many bogus colleges were benefiting in the name of the fee reimbursement scheme.

KCR described Naidu’s statements on the issue as an interference in Telangana’s affairs.

On the other hand, the Andhra Pradesh Minister for Social Welfare R Kishore Babu expressed apprehension that the issue of nativity will not stop with the fee scheme.

“There are fears that the same approach will be adopted in [the] matter of jobs and education,” he said.

He said that Chandrababu Naidu will write a letter to Prime Minister Narendra Modi on this issue and will also raise the matter personally before President Pranab Mukherji when he arrives here on Saturday.

He said that Naidu had sought an appointment with Telangana Chief Minister KCR to discuss the issue, but it had not been granted so far.