TS government can breathe easy this year

Fee reimbursement burden will not be much even if all eligible students exercise the option. In the remaining 59,819 seats, students from Andhra Pradesh will be eligible for 15 per cent of unreserved quota (non-local quota).

The government’s burden on paying the tuition fee for engineering students will drastically come down this year even if all the eligible candidates claim the fee under the fee reimbursement scheme, now renamed as Financial Assistance to Students of Telangana (FAST).

As per the statistics available with the officials, 141 colleges have been permitted so far to admit students in the first phase of counselling with seat capacity of 85,455 seats in all engineering branches. Of this 30 per cent of seats are reserved for management quota, which means effectively 25,636 seats will not be eligible for fee reimbursement as the government doesn’t reimburse fee for students admitted under the management quota.

In the remaining 59,819 seats, students from Andhra Pradesh will be eligible for 15 per cent of unreserved quota (non-local quota). Though local students also compete for these seats non-local students generally end up taking nearly 10 per cent of seats, officials say. So nearly 6,000 seats will be taken by non-local students for whom the Telangana government has already refused to reimburse the fee thus leaving nearly 54,000 seats only eligible for the scheme.

Among these numbers nearly 30 per cent will be ineligible for the scheme as their parental income would be more than Rs. one lakh per year. Last year’s statistics prove that nearly 30 per cent students did not claim fee reimbursement. Effectively, not more than 27,000 students will be claiming tuition fee reimbursement this year. With the new FAST guidelines that are going to quite stringent given the indications from the government, several thousands may find themselves ineligible, at least from the second year.

Phase II of admissions

Officials feel even if the 174 colleges, that were denied affiliation by the JNTU Hyderabad and excluded from the counselling list, get included in the second phase of admissions, the government may always argue that their students will not get FAST benefit unless they improve their facilities.

Be flexible, govt. told

Student unions argue that the government’s whole effort of rejecting affiliation to the colleges was to reduce its financial burden. ABVP secretary Jamalpur Niranjan questions the government’s sincerity.

“The government should not reject tuition fee reimbursement citing lack of facilities in colleges or putting harsh conditions to qualify for the FAST scheme,” he adds.