HYDERABAD: After failing to get a positive response from the TRS government on the issue of fee hike by private schools, Hyderabad Schools Parents Association on Wednesday released its own version of the viral ‘Sonu Song’.The song, viewed over 600 times within a couple of hours of being posted on YouTube, is an attempt to draw the attention of the chief minister K Chandrasekhar Rao, who also features in the video, albeit in the form of a cut-out.
The song begins with “KCR tumku padhai ki fikarich nai kya? School fee loot roktaich nai kya?”— (Are you not worried about education KCR? Won’t you stop this fee loot?) — a question that the association has raised several times over the years. Calling it a direct appeal to the CM, Ashish Naredi, member of the association, said, “We have complained to the CM, his top bureaucrats and ministers, filed FIRs and PILs, won a case in Supreme Court, p:rovided video evidence of illegal capitation fee collection by schools in addition to the various protests and campaigns. We fail to understand what will draw attention of the CM and get him to act.”
The song also praises the Delhi government for initiating the fee refund rule while in Telangana, the Prof Tirupati Rao Committee that was constituted to prepare report on District Fee Regulatory Committees is being delayed on one or the other pretext. The report that was supposed to be submitted in April has not yet seen the light of day.
Recently, the HSPA had asked for a meeting of all members of the committee. They were told the meeting would be convened in September but only after the portal — where schools will upload their fee details — is up and running. “The commitee has taken an extension till November 15. We have been told the meeting will be held in the first week of September but the date hasn’t been communicated. The committee is not giving any updates even to members,” said a parent.