HYDERABAD: Abrupt adjournment of the Assembly session on Wednesday after the Chief Minister’s reply on a short discussion on fee reimbursement scheme led to vociferous protests by the Opposition parties.
Congress party members refused to move from the House even after adjournment, and staged a sit-in near the Speaker’s podium. TDP and CPI(M) members too followed suit, while MIM leader Asaduddin Owaisi registered his protest with the Chair of the House.
The short discussion began on a wrong note, when Congress member K.Venkat Reddy protested over Deputy Speaker Padma Devender Reddy cautioning him about time limit, inviting ire of the Chair and also the Treasury benches.
Later, Congress legislator T.Rammohan Reddy, during his address, mentioned ₹4,410 crore arrears payable to various institutions, due to non-payment of which colleges and students were suffering. A total of 103 colleges had to be shut down.
BJP member K.Laxman questioned the government’s intent in not paying the meagre reimbursement amount from its ₹1.3 lakh crore budget. He also pointed out that counselling for B.Ed. admissions has not yet been conducted, and DSC not announced.
MIM floor leader Akbaruddin Owaisi registered strong protest over the brief statement given by the Minister on such important scheme, and brought to the notice of the House, that the sector-wise releases for the scheme have always been much less than the demand. Overseas scholarship requests too are not being processed.
Chief Minister K.Chandrasekhar Rao began his reply by saying that the members should not mislead the students in the name of government jobs.
Crores of candidates coming out of the institutions cannot have government jobs, as the number of jobs in IT and industrial sectors far outnumbers the government posts.
He assured the continuation of fee reimbursement scheme in its original form. As the colleges and students keep registering throughout the year, payments cannot be made in the same year, he said. During the last three years, government has paid ₹4,687.72 crore towards fees.
Merger of colleges
On closure of colleges, he said they have carried out mergers and strengthened the infrastructure, as per government’s advice.
“Does any other State have 370 engineering colleges? Every year, 1.5 lakh graduates are coming out and applying for constable and home-guard jobs,” Mr.Chandrasekhar Rao said, and added that there was a need to cut down even the B.Ed. college numbers, as not enough teacher posts are available.
Immediately after Mr.Rao’s reply, adjournment was announced by the Chair ignoring Opposition leader K.Jana Reddy’s protests that he had not been allowed to speak.
Congress members, including N.Uttam Kumar Reddy, T.Jeevan Reddy, G.Chinna Reddy, and others, staged the sit-in, to be joined by A.Revanth Reddy and Sunnam Rajaiah later. MIM and BJP members left the House after a short while. Minister Nayani Narasimha Reddy’s entreaties did not yield any result, and four hours later, the protesting members were forcibly shifted out and taken to their respective party offices by the police.
