Professional Colleges on Indefinite Strike from

HYDERABAD: Protesting against the state government’s delay in releasing fee reimbursement dues to professional colleges, the Consortium of Engineering and Professional Colleges Managements’ As

HYDERABAD: Protesting against the state government’s delay in releasing fee reimbursement dues to professional colleges, the Consortium of Engineering and Professional Colleges Managements’ Association has decided to shut down all professional institutions indefinitely from February 7.

The chairman of the consortium N Ramesh said that colleges were not in a position to continue for long.

“We have run the colleges with a lot of difficulty by borrowing funds from all possible sources in the past seven months.

Now there is no way left for us but to shut shop,” he said.

He added, “We had submitted a memorandum to the government on January 1 demanding release of funds by January 16.

But the government which promised to release funds by February 5 has failed to keep its promise.” Speaking to reporters after the third annual general body meeting of the CEPCMA, he said the government had completed verification of only 10 percent of fee reimbursement applications till now.

“We are not in a position to pay salaries to teaching and non-teaching staff and meet other daily expenses due to fund crunch,” Ramesh said.

Moreover, he said they were disappointed with minister for social welfare P Satyanaryana’s remark that the delay in releasing funds was the result of delay in sending applications of students.

He alleged that the government was instructing verification officials to conduct the process slowly as the state government was itself facing a fund shortage.

Meanwhile, after the management associations announced suspension of colleges, the consortium leaders got a phone call from PCC president Botcha Satynarayana for informal talks over the issue.

The government has to release `4,260 crore towards fee reimbursement and scholarships to approximately 25 lakh students.

The other demands of the college managements include release of a calendar of next year’s fee reimbursement, release of admission calendar of all common entrance tests by February 28, completion of admission process by June 15, implementation of uniform fee structure to all seats and management quota following High Court verdict and five per cent NRI quota to original NRIs.

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