The National Democratic Alliance government in Andhra Pradesh led by Telugu Desam Party president and chief minister N Chandrababu Naidu has decided to do away with the direct benefit transfer mode of fee reimbursement scheme, which was under implementation during the Y S Jagan Mohan Reddy regime.
Naidu made this announcement during his Independence Day speech at Vijayawada on Thursday.
He declared that as part of the fee reimbursement scheme, the fees of the students would be directly credited into the accounts of the colleges where they are studying.
“This will remove all the tensions of the students who can attend their classes and write examinations without bothering about their fee payment,” he said.
After Jagan came to power in 2019, he changed the fee reimbursement scheme’s name as “Jagananna Vidya Deevena” and started crediting the fee of the students into the bank accounts of their mothers through direct benefit transfer (DBT) mode.
The Jagananna Vidya Deevena scheme provides for complete reimbursement of fee to students belonging to to the Scheduled Caste, Scheduled Tribe, Backward Class and Economically Backward Classes (other than Kapu), minority sections and differently-abled categories.
Jagan made it clear that it was the responsibility of the mothers to pay the fees of the students in the colleges. Apparently, he thought crediting the annual tuition fees into the accounts of mothers would fetch him huge political mileage and they would all vote for him in the elections.
Though Jagan used to click the button to release the amount every year, more often than not, there used to be delay in crediting the amounts into the accounts of mothers.
Even those who got the money used to spend the same for their personal use, instead of paying the college fee.
As a result, huge fee arrears were pending in several colleges in the last three years. The colleges refused to give certificates to students, whose fee reimbursement scheme arrears were pending.
Over six lakh students failed to get back certificates from their respective educational institutions.
According to a report obtained by the present government, the dues of Jagananna Vidya Deevena amounted to Rs 3,480 crore.
In the academic year 2023-24 alone, mothers of around 20,000 students who were beneficiaries of Jagananna Vidya Deevena scheme, defaulted on payment of the fees to the respective college managements of their wards after receiving the financial assistance from the government for the purpose.
Education minister Nara Lokesh said the officials should ensure that students get back their certificates after discussing the matter with the managements of educational institutions.