Hyderabad, February 12: The Consortium of Engineering and Professional Colleges Managements’ Association here on Friday announced their decision to close all the colleges from February 16 following what they termed as’`failure’ of the talks with the Group of Ministers (GoM) on the fee reimbursement issue.
While the government made it clear that it could only release Rs.600 crore towards fee reimbursement, the college managements insisted that nothing less than Rs.1,900 crore by February 15 was acceptable to them.
The three-hour meeting was attended by the five-member GoM comprising Botcha Satyanarayana, K Parthasarathy, C. Damodar Rajanarsimha, Pithani Satyanarayana and Basavaraju Saraiah and the representatives of the Consortium from all the three regions,
Emerging from the meeting, Social Welfare Minister Pithani Satyanarayana and Higher Education Minister Damodar Rajanarsimha said that the government had cleared the arrears of 2009-10 and for the current academic year, it would give a release order for Rs.600 crore in two or three days and the rest in phases in the next financial year. Mr. Rajanarsimha said that an option of giving bank guarantee to enable the managements raise loans in the meantime also came up in the meeting and it would be taken to the notice of Chief Minister. The GoM and the college management representatives would meet again on Saturday.
On the other hand, Consortium Chairman N. Ramesh Babu, working president Krishna Rao and Secretary K. V. K. Rao said they were extremely disappointed with the stubborn stand of the Government. They said that out of Rs.3,800 crore to be paid for the current academic year, even after seven months, government did not release a single rupee towards tuition fee-reimbursement. While they demanded 50 per cent of the amount before February 15, government was only willing to pay 15 per cent.
Mr. Ramesh Babu said if Rs.1,900 crore was not released by February 15, 50 per cent of engineering and other colleges offering MCA, MBA, Pharmacy etc., would die a ‘natural death’. The government was not at all talking about funds due for 2010-11 and nor had it given any promise. Representatives of associations from all the three regions, Andhra, Rayalaseema and Telangana announced that they had no option but to close down their colleges numbering about 2,000 from February 16 because of severe financial crisis.
–Agencies