Fee reimbursement: Telangana high court seeks details on release of pending dues to engineering colleges

Hyderabad: Telangana high court on Wednesday expressed displeasure with the education department over the delay in filing counters in petitions by private engineering colleges seeking release of long-pending tuition fee reimbursement dues.Justice Juvvadi Sridevi on Wednesday directed the state govt and the department to clarify when it would clear the pending fee dues to engineering colleges. According to reports, the state owes over Rs 1,000 crore to the engineering colleges. The judge directed govt to furnish details of the release of pending dues by Thursday and adjourned the hearing.During the hearing, the judge asked how the colleges could function when huge amounts of dues were left unpaid.

It also asked how students could be admitted for the current academic year if colleges were told not to collect fee from them while govt itself had not released the pending amount.Senior counsels L Ravichander and Sriram, appearing for the colleges, informed the court that after the latter stayed GO 7, govt withdrew it and another GO.“Govt also brought out another GO with guidelines on implementing fee reimbursement.

This GO says that fee reimbursement would be deposited directly into students’ bank accounts. It also says students must pay the arrears to the colleges within a week, failing which revenue recovery proceedings will be initiated against their parents,” the counsels said. They contended that this order too was against the court’s earlier directions and sought its suspension.Special govt pleader Rahul Reddy argued that the fee reimbursement scheme also involved a share from the Centre, and that the Union govt was asking the state to pay first and indicating that it would release its share only afterwards.“As a result, the state was now in a position where it had to clear the entire backlog on its own,” he added and sought two weeks’ time to file a detailed counter and requested the court not to pass any interim orders.After hearing the arguments, the judge rejected the special GP’s request, saying that so much time could not be granted, and adjourned the hearing to Thursday.