Andhra Pradesh Minister for HRD Ganta Srinivas Rao urged the Telangana Government to quickly take a decision on fee reimbursement and nativity issue so that counselling dates for admission into engineering colleges can be announced.
The Minister said that he was open to hold talks with his counterpart in Telangana and solve the issue at the earliest to save the academic year of the students.
“Already students are seriously considering shifting to engineering colleges in other States. Further delay in holding counselling is not good for students, college managements and both the Governments. I will meet the Telangana Education Minister immediately to convince him to thrash out the irritants,” he said on Monday while interacting with press persons.
Clarifying the AP Government’s stand on the nativity issue, he said: “We don’t want to stir a hornet’s nest. We respect the Presidential Order on nativity and don’t want to bring a constitutional crisis by challenging it. On the other hand, it is the Telangana Government, which is not making its policy clear to us in writing”.
The Andhra Pradesh Government’s response will depend on the stand taken by the Telangana Government on nativity and fee reimbursement, he pointed out. “If they want to challenge the Presidential Order, then we will definitely look for options like approaching the Centre for guidance or taking legal recourse. It all depends on the decision of Telangana Government,” the Minister said.
He said there was a need to release a common notification for counselling in engineering colleges for both AP and Telangana. “We can’t release a government order for counselling on our own. Large number of students from AP who are settled in Telangana are considered as ‘non-locals’ in Andhra Pradesh. In case, the Telangana Government decides to consider AP students in Telangana as ‘non-locals’, then where will these students go? So, common notification and co-ordination between the two Governments is important,” he said.
