YSR Congress party president and Andhra Pradesh chief minister Y S Jagan Mohan Reddy is said to have taken a serious view of the misuse of his pet scheme “Jagananna Vidya Deevena” which is aimed at reimbursing the fee to the students of poorer sections.
In fact, there has been a controversy right from the beginning over the implementation of the scheme, which is actually a modified version of the earlier fee reimbursement scheme.
In the past, the government used to reimburse the fees of the students to the colleges for admitting them without charging the fee.
The Jagan government modified the scheme and has been crediting the fee amount into the accounts of the mothers, so that they would directly pay to the colleges.
This was found fault by the college managements as the mothers were not paying fees of the students to the colleges. Even the high court directed that the money should go to the colleges and not to the mothers.
A recent survey conducted by the government revealed that 40 per cent of the mothers are not paying the amount, credited to their accounts under Jagananan Vidya Deevena scheme, to the colleges in the form of fee for their children.
As a result, the fees due to be paid to the colleges began mounting and when the college managements insisted on their payments, the parents are complaining of harassment and moving the courts.
With the high court taking serious view, the Jagan government has now woken up and started issuing notices to all such mothers.
It said no further instalments of money under the scheme would be released to the mothers, who had not paid the fees to the colleges.
The officials have been asked to finalise the list of those beneficiaries who had received money under the scheme but had not paid the fee to the colleges.
“Real beneficiaries would be identified from October 27 to November 10 and a list of the eligible beneficiaries would be published on November 17. Only such mothers would get the next instalment of fee reimbursement,” the official statement said.
