State agrees to pay full ‘feebie’ for the poor

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Chief Minister N. Kiran Kumar Reddy announced the new fee reimbursement policy for engineering courses for this academic year on Thursday. Other than reimbursing the total fees for all eligible students studying in colleges charging Rs 35,000, the government will also reimburse the entire fees for certain categories of students irrespective of the amounts charged by the managements.

These categories are:
* All SC and ST students.
* BPL students who have pursued Intermediate courses in government colleges or in private colleges with financial aid from the government.
* BPL students who secu-red below-10,000 ranks in Eamcet.

The policy also laid emphasis on reining in private colleges from selling management quota seats and the government has made it mandatory for managements to fill their quota online.

For 2012-2013, the Admission and Fee Regulatory Committee has fixed Rs 35,000 as the fee in 604 colleges with combined seat strength of 1,92,311. In 85 colleges, the fees will vary from Rs 52,000 to Rs 1,05,000 for 33,243 seats.

The fee reimbursement scheme applies to students who take admission in the 70 per cent convener quota. All students whose annual family income is below Rs 1 lakh (the limit for SC and ST students is Rs 2 lakh) are eligible for the scheme.

AP to incur Rs 100cr additional expense
Chief Minister Kiran Kumar Reddy on Thursday said the state government would incur additional expenditures of Rs 100 crore because of changes in the fee reimbursement policy. Though there has been a delay in counselling as a result of which the academic year could not start, the government has made use of this opportunity to streamline the scheme and prevent sale of management quota seats, Mr Kiran Kumar Reddy pointed out. He also dismissed the contentions that the state government had been targeting colleges which had demanded higher fees.