The state government will reimburse the fees of students who have taken admission in various professional and other higher education courses this academic year (2012-13) only after thoroughly scrutinising every application. This has become necessary following complaints that a large number of bogus certificates were submitted to claim the benefit.
The government has decided to take the help of task forces to identify bogus students. The payment of the first installment of the fee reimbursement will begin in October. The cabinet sub-committee on fee reimbursement headed by Deputy CM Damodar Raja Narasimha met here on Monday to discuss the issue.
“There have been complaints that several students obtained income certificates stating annual family income of less than `1 lakh, to be eligible for the fee reimbursement scheme, besides obtaining fake caste certificates. The task forces constituted by the government will verify these applications at ground-level by visiting each and every college. They will also visit the MRO offices to verify the records to find out whether the certificates submitted by students are genuine,” said Pithani Satya-narayana, the minister for social welfare.
As per preliminary estimates, the government requires `6,000 crore this year to fund the fee reimbursement scheme. While there are about 15 lakh renewal students, another 10 lakh applications are expected from freshers admitted this year. The state is already owes colleges `285 crore for the previous academic year.
The cash-strapped government is now enforcing the corrective measure to minimise its financial burden. The government is also thinking of other such measures, such as linking the performance of students in exams and their attendance, as eligibility criteria to avail of the benefit.