KARIMNAGAR, OCTOBER 17, 2024: All the private degree and PG colleges in the old Karimnagar district have been indefinitely following a call given by the Telangana private degree and PG colleges management association (TPDPGMA) demanding the government to clear pending fee reimbursement arrears for the last three academic years.
After the Dasara holidays, the private degree and PG colleges did not open their institutions from October 14 onwards. They declared indefinite closure and appealed to the students and their parents to cooperate with the private colleges’ management.
On Thursday, the management of private degree and PG colleges, including correspondents and faculty members, staged a dharna in front of the Collectorate in Karimnagar town, demanding the government release the pending fee reimbursement.
They said that they were forced to go on the closure of institutions as they could not pay salaries to the faculty members following the non-release of the pending fee reimbursement amount. “We had been appealing to the government to release the fee reimbursement, but in vain. We tried to represent the issue with Chief Minister A Revanth Reddy, who is also holding Education portfolio, but did not give appointment to the state leaders”, complained a correspondent of a private degree college.
Neither the government releases the pending fee reimbursement nor allows us to collect fees from the students, he said and asked how could we run the colleges and pay salaries to faculty, pay rents and power bills etc. The private colleges’ management stated that they would continue their agitation for the closure of colleges till the government releases the pending fee reimbursement. Stating that the private colleges’ management incurred huge debts to provide salaries to the staff, they said that they could not run the colleges without the release of pending fee reimbursement. They also urged the government to stop the fee reimbursement scheme and allow private colleges to collect the fees from the students for providing education.
The situation is the same with the private engineering colleges and other professional colleges in the Telangana state. They were also planning to go on indefinite closure of educational institutions demanding release of pending fee reimbusement.
