The fee reimbursement scheme provides tuition support to students from SC, ST, BC, and minority groups pursuing professional courses.
Published Nov 05, 2025 | 2:49 PM ⚊ Updated Nov 05, 2025 | 2:49 PM
Representational image. Credit: iStock
Synopsis: Telangana private colleges enter third day of indefinite shutdown over ₹10,000 crore arrears in fee reimbursement scheme. The state government has formed 15-member committee to revamp funding, fix fees, and ensure phased payments. FATHI has also demanded immediate ₹5,000 crore release and plans to hold mass protests if things don’t go as promised.
As private professional colleges across Telangana enter third day of their indefinite shutdown, the state government has moved in to tackle the deepening crisis triggered by the delay in clearing dues under its flagship fee reimbursement programme.
In a recently issued Government Order (GO), the Scheduled Caste Development Department announced the formation of a high-level committee to revamp the scheme’s funding structure. The absence of a stable mechanism has affected more than 1.2 lakh students and pushed hundreds of institutions toward financial collapse.
The fee reimbursement scheme, a central pillar of Telangana’s social welfare policy, provides tuition support to students from Scheduled Castes (SC), Scheduled Tribes (ST), Backward Classes (BC), and minority groups pursuing professional courses such as engineering, pharmacy, MBA, and nursing.
Over time, however, the programme has turned into a fiscal challenge, with annual expenditures surpassing ₹10,000 crore. Chronic delays in disbursements—caused by budget shortages, bureaucratic hurdles, and the diversion of funds to politically sensitive programmes like crop loan waiver— have led to unrest among students and the managements of colleges in the state’s higher education sector.
The current impasse dates back to early 2025, when arrears for 2022–24 crossed ₹7,000 crore. By June, the figure reached ₹8,000 crore, prompting the Federation of Associations of Telangana Higher Institutions (FATHI), an umbrella body of about 1,800 private colleges, to issue ultimatums to the government. Faculty salaries went unpaid, hostels faced operational shutdowns, and maintenance funds ran dry.
The human cost became evident when 2024 engineering graduates were denied their original certificates by managements over unpaid tuition dues, derailing job placements and postgraduate admissions.
Throughout the year, FATHI intensified its agitation: first declaring September 15—a day otherwise marked as Engineer’s Day—as “Black Day,” followed by a demand for an immediate ₹1,200 crore release. The government promised to release ₹600 crore immediately but cleared only ₹300 crore which provided only a brief relief. By October, cumulative arrears ballooned to ₹10,000 crore.
On November 3, FATHI launched an indefinite strike, shutting down 1,800 institutions and halting examinations. Student bodies like the Students’ Federation of India (SFI) staged protests outside ministers’ homes, while the Students’ Islamic Organisation (SIO) highlighted the plight of minority students, pointing to 1.21 lakh pending applications and ₹227 crore in unspent funds under the Reimbursement of Tuition Fee (RTF) scheme as of July.
FATHI chairperson N Ramesh Babu warned that the state was witnessing a “systematic erosion” of the programme, forcing qualified lecturers to migrate and threatening mass closures.
Amid mounting pressure, the government issued GO Ms. No. 19 on 28 October, 2025— a follow-up on Deputy Chief Minister Mallu Bhatti Vikramarka’s September meetings with FATHI at Praja Bhavan in Hyderabad.
The order constituted a 15-member committee chaired by the Special Chief Secretary (Welfare) and vice-chaired by the Principal Secretary (Finance). Members include secretaries from Education and welfare departments, the Telangana State Council of Higher Education Chairperson, the SC Development Commissioner, academics such as Professor Kancha Ilaiah and Professor M. Kodandaram, and three FATHI representatives.
The committee has been tasked with designing a sustainable reimbursement model. This apart, the panel must recommend a transparent structure for fee fixation, admissions, and phased reimbursements—split into four installments each academic year beginning 2025–26 to ensure complete clearance by year-end. It is also expected to suggest quality measures and safeguards against withholding of certificates of students.
The committee has three months, until January 2026, to submit its report, even as FATHI plans new protests—a 8 November staff rally at LB Stadium targeting 30,000 participants and a 11 November “Chalo Secretariat” march projected to draw 10 lakh students. Student groups like SFI have dismissed the committee as “an evasion of responsibility,” arguing that it delays immediate ₹5,000 crore releases needed to end the strike.
Deputy CM Vikramarka, who led the September negotiations, had defended the government’s staged approach. While announcing sanction of ₹600 crore (only ₹300 crore released), he had said that it aimed to “prevent any halt to the education of students from underprivileged sections,” attributing most arrears to “a decade of neglect under the previous BRS government.”
Panchayat Raj Minister Danasari Anasuya (Seethakka), addressing the Assembly in March, reiterated that “all pending dues to college managements will be cleared in a phased manner” to protect free education for economically weaker students, though the government had inherited a mountain of legacy dues from the BRS era.
Meanwhile, the opposition Bharat Rashtra Samithi has seized the crisis as political fodder. During an election rally in Jubilee Hills on 4 November, party working president KT Rama Rao accused the Congress government of “deliberately sabotaging Telangana’s educated youth and betraying families who placed their hopes in the fee reimbursement scheme.”
(Edited by Amit Vasudev)
