Jagan cheating BPL students on fee reimbursement: TDP

Mangalagiri: TDP central office secretary and MLC P Ashok Babu on Thursday said that the YSRCP government was wasting crores of rupees of public money in the name of instalment advertisements on fee reimbursement while giving it to far less BPL families' students when compared to the previous TDP rule.

He said that the YSRCP regime gave fee reimbursement to just 10.97 lakh poor students whereas the TDP government gave it to 16 lakh during 2018-19. Moreover, the YSRCP government was reimbursing only the BPL students under the convener quota. As such, it was giving the benefit to just 30 per cent of the BPL families. The Chandrababu government extended the benefit to all of their students.

Addressing a press conference here, the TDP MLC said that the Chief Minister was cheating the poor families and their students with his government's colourful advertisements. From this, only the Chief Minister's family media would derive benefit. The fee reimbursement was being released in four instalments only to create as many chances for releasing huge public funds to the Jagan Mohan Reddy media in the name of advertisements, he alleged.

Ashok Babu said that the TDP government used to pay fee reimbursement at one go which helped the educational institutions to complete the academic year and give certificates in time. The YSRCP government was releasing Rs 40,000 reimbursement to an engineering student in four instalments of Rs 10,000 each. The delay and uncertainty in the release of these funds was threatening to disrupt the students' future, he said.

The MLC demanded the Chief Minister to explain why AP ranking slipped down to 19th place now in the Niti Aayog rankings while the state was in 3rd place during the TDP rule. The YSRCP spent just Rs. 19,961 crore during 2019-`20 though it had to spend 30 per cent more than previous year on education.

Even in higher education, the YSRCP reduced funds from Rs 2,276 crore in 2020-`21 to Rs 1,973 crore in 2021-`22. There was a cut of Rs 300 crore which exposed the Chief Minister's lack of support to higher education, he remarked.