Why are you discontinuing aid to these colleges? HC Poser to Telangana Collegiate Education Commissioner

HYDERABAD: Wondering whether the state is paving the way for fleecing of parents by private colleges, the Hyderabad High Court on Tuesday sought a reply from the State of Telangana on why its collegiate education commissioner issued a circular a month ago allowing certain government aided academic courses in colleges to go unaided.

If you stop financial aid to these courses, the private colleges that are offering them will hike the fees, the bench of acting Chief Justice Ramesh Ranganathan and Justice J Uma Devi told the state counsel while dealing with a public interest petition filed by J Shankar, an unemployed youth from Dharmapuri village in Karimnagar district.

He was challenging the decision of the Telangana government in converting aided courses and sections in several colleges in Telangana State into unaided courses stating that this would deprive the poor students of getting a quality education.

There are 53 government aided colleges in Telangana State which are now being slowly taken over by persons with a profit motive, the petitioner said. These educational institutions which are running with government aid have been set up in the 1970s by some philanthropists and eminent educationists with a view to taking education closer to the poor, he said.

They contributed money, land and constructed buildings for the purpose of extending quality education to the poor and downtrodden who do not have access to education. The governments too have been allotting land and other facilities along with financial aid to them. Some of the courses offered by them are being funded by UGC too, he said.

Now, the petitioner said, some private educational institutions have formed educational societies with commercial motives and are seeking to take over these aided colleges. The current process of stopping the aid to these colleges was part of a private design to turn them into complete private colleges, he said and sought suspension of the commissioner's circular.

The state counsel said that the state supervision will always be there and that the state would determine the fee etc. The bench sought a counter from the authorities and posted the case to two weeks.