BJP's Ramchander Rao presses Revanth Reddy for clarity on ₹15,000 crore fee dues
BJP Telangana president N. Ramchander Rao has asked CM A. Revanth Reddy to state when nearly ₹15,000 crore in fee reimbursement dues will be cleared.
Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) Telangana president N. Ramchander Rao has called on Chief Minister A. Revanth Reddy to spell out a timeline for clearing fee reimbursement dues that run to almost ₹15,000 crore, accusing the Congress government of dragging its feet on a matter affecting lakhs of students.
Speaking at a press conference at the party's State office in Hyderabad on Saturday, Mr. Rao pushed back against the Chief Minister's remarks in the Assembly a day earlier that the BJP had not questioned the previous Bharat Rashtra Samithi (BRS) government on the issue. He said he had raised fee reimbursement, student scholarships and the condition of the education system in the Legislative Council on January 4, 2017, while serving as an MLC, and that the record would bear this out.
Citing figures the present government itself placed before the Assembly, Mr. Rao said arrears of about ₹5,430 crore had built up under the BRS regime by the time the Congress assumed office. A further ₹6,037 crore had accumulated during the Congress government's tenure, he claimed.
The BJP leader said his party would not oppose the government routing the reimbursement through a direct benefit transfer (DBT) mechanism, crediting the amount straight into students' accounts. What students needed, he added, was a clear indication of when the money would reach them.
G.O. 97 and polytechnic protests
Mr. Rao also took aim at G.O. 97, which deals with the polytechnic education system, arguing that it jeopardised the future of polytechnic students. He criticised the police action against students protesting over the same issue.
The BJP president said party workers had gone to colleges and gathered signatures from roughly eight lakh students on petitions listing their grievances, and alleged that the Chief Minister had not given them an appointment to submit the representations.
Accusing the Congress and the BRS of being "two sides of the same coin" and of covering up each other's lapses, Mr. Rao said that if the government was unable to clear the dues, it should say so plainly.