Students pursuing Intermediate as well as professional courses such as law, management, engineering, and medicine from the Seemandhra region are a worried lot these days. Apart from the job opportunity that appears bleak, their main concern is the ‘home State reservation’ factor.
“There is a lot of confusion with regard to the home state quota factor. There is no clarity and we are worried about what will be the next move,” said a student from NRI Institute of Technology.
Explaining the issue, Chaitanya Institute CEO Uma Maheshwara Rao said, “Most of the top colleges, both government and private, such as IIT-Hyderabad, IIIT, NALSAR, BITS at Shamirpet, CPMB, NIT- Warangal, Agriculture University, and Central University are located in and around Hyderabad. And most importantly, a couple of the colleges do have the ‘home state quota’, wherein resident students of Andhra Pradesh have a certain percentage of seats booked under the quota.”
The students fear that post bifurcation, they would lose the quota, as they will come under another State. Brahmaji of Narayana College said about 50 per cent of the seats in NIT-Warangal and about 20 per cent of seats for both UG and PG courses in NALSAR were reserved for students from the State under this category. Elaborating, he said, 14 seats out of a total 70 in LLB and 10 seats out of a total 50 in LLM in NALSAR were allotted to students from the State.
“Not only the students, even authorities concerned in the government, college management, and parents are in a state of confusion,” said NALSAR senior professor Balakista Reddy. “While the ‘home state quota’ is definitely a worrying factor, the real problem lies in the location of the institutes,” said Engineering College Association member Gadde Rajaling. “Most of the top colleges, across disciplines, are located in the Telangana region, and it will take years to build such institutes in the Seemandhra region,” he said.
Acquiescing with Mr. Rajaling, senior educationist M. Krishna Murthy pointed out that at present 80 per cent of the PG and Ph.D students in University of Hyderabad (Central University) were from the Andhra region.
“It is surprising the government had set up three Central Universities in Hyderabad and not one in any other region. Medical students, especially PGs, would suffer as all super speciality courses are taught in Hyderabad region only,” he said.
