Telangana Chief Minister K. Chandrasekhar Rao has reiterated that deciding the nativity of people is the prerogative of the State government and his government will not reimburse fee to students of other States.
He said a full Bench of the Supreme Court and the High Court had given their judgment in the past making it clear that the State governments had the power to decide the nativity of people based on certain norms.
The Chief Minister’s comment made at a meeting on household surveys here on Friday assumes significance in the backdrop of the setting up of a committee to finalise the modalities for the fee reimbursement scheme.
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Stating that the benefit under the fee reimbursement scheme was being availed indiscriminately by many ineligible students, he noted that the burden on the government with the scheme would be Rs. 3,000 crore for this year alone. Besides, there are Rs. 1,363 crore worth dues of previous years. The government is planning to plug all leakages in the scheme and extend the benefit only to the students of Telangana, the Chief Minister noted.
On the land purchase scheme to landless SC families, Mr. Chandrasekhar Rao said the government was not in a hurry to implement it haphazardly. “We won’t hesitate to spend Rs. 1,000 crore to Rs. 3,000 crore on land purchase this year alone, provided cultivable land is available,” the Chief Minister said, adding that of the 12 lakh SC families, 9 lakh were in rural areas and the rest in urban areas. In case land is not available at an affordable rate, the government provides assistance for taking up livelihoods, he stated.
He mentioned that in 31 years of the land scheme’s implementation, 31,000 SC families were given 41,000 acres of land in Telangana by spending Rs. 92 crore. “It will be a great achievement even if are able to give land to about one lakh families,” the Chief Minister said.
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