Fee reimbursement capped at Rs 31,000 for BC, EBCs

Students hoping to avail the government’s fee reimbursement  scheme can now hope to get a maximum benefit of Rs 31,000 per annum. If the fee they are charged by their college exceeds that, they would have to approach a bank to raise the rest.

After weeks of grappling with the fee reimbursement issue in the wake of the Supreme Court order, the state government on Monday finally decided to cap at Rs 31,000 per annum the fee reimbursement it pays for each student of a professional course. However, the ceiling will apply only to students belonging to BC and economically backward communities (EBCs). Students from SC and ST communities will continue to get full reimbursement.

The government said it will announce its uniform fee structure for professional colleges within three months.In respect of BC/EBC students, the state government will facilitate bank loans in the event of the fee being higher than its ceiling.

These key decisions were announced by social welfare minister P Satyanarayana after a meeting of the cabinet sub-committee on fee reimbursement on Monday.

The notification for EAMCET counselling will be issued on August 8 and the admission process will begin soon thereafter.

The other important step announced by the minister was that seats in the convener and management quotas will have to be filled online to make the process transparent.

As of now, managements enjoy the freedom to fill seats in their quota.

The government also decided to constitute a task force comprising officials from vigilance, police and education departments to assist the Admission & Fee Regulatory Committee (AFRC).

Members of AFRC and the task force will jointly inspect engineering colleges to see if their infrastructure, faculty and facilities are good enough.

The uniform fee will be fixed once this exercise is completed.

Increasing the number of seats in select colleges depending on the facilities available and introduction of some engineering courses in polytechnic institutes are among the other issues under the government’s consideration.