Telangana deprived of top education institutions
Hyderabad: There is no end to the Centre’s discrimination towards Telangana and its utter failure in keeping its promises made in the Parliament itself. The BJP government did not sanction a single educational institution of national importance to Telangana, since the State formation and instead, preferred to establish them in election-bound States for obvious reasons. […]
Hyderabad: There is no end to the Centre’s discrimination towards Telangana and its utter failure in keeping its promises made in the Parliament itself. The BJP government did not sanction a single educational institution of national importance to Telangana, since the State formation and instead, preferred to establish them in election-bound States for obvious reasons.
In the last seven years, the Narendra Modi government sanctioned as many as 7 IITs, 7 IIMs, 2 IISERs, 16 IIITs, 4 NIDs, 157 medical colleges, 84 Navodaya Vidyalayas and over 50 Kendriya Vidyalayas to other States. But none of them granted to Telangana. All this despite repeated requests and representations from the Telangana government over the years where Chief Minister K Chandrashekhar Rao personally took up these issues with Prime Minister Narendra Modi. TRS MPs raised the issue in the Parliament as well, but in vain.
The State government has sought establishment of an IIIT (Indian Institute of Information Technology) at Karimnagar on a public-private partnership basis, but the Centre rejected the request stating that there are no such plans.
Incidentally, the Karimnagar Parliamentary constituency is represented by BJP State president Bandi Sanjay Kumar in the Lok Sabha, and yet there was a negative response.
The Ministers, MPs and officials from Telangana received similar response whenever they sought a variety of institutions such as IITs, IIMs, IISERs and others. While one would not argue over the allocation of these institutions proposed to come up in Tier-2 cities of other States which in turn would boost the local economy and provide better academic opportunities to students, many in the State keep wondering about the exact reasons behind the BJP government at the Centre denying similar support to Telangana.
The tale of allotment of government medical colleges is no different. Of 157 medical colleges sanctioned by the Centre in the last seven years, Telangana did not receive any. The BJP government’s intentions were clear for all as it has sanctioned 26 medical colleges to Uttar Pradesh and 23 to Rajasthan, both election-bound States. Irked over the Centre’s indifference, the State government took upon itself to establish 12 government medical colleges with an expenditure of Rs 500 crore each. While four of them will commence operations from next academic year, another eight colleges will be established over next one year.
Despite its policy to establish one Navodaya Vidyalaya in each district as well as Kendriya Vidyalayas on population basis, the union government did not sanction at least one Vidyalaya in the last seven years. With 33 districts, the State now has just 30 Kendriya Vidyalayas and nine Navodaya Vidyalayas. Further, both the institutions have more than 10 per cent vacancies against their respective sanctioned staff strength which were not filled in the recent past.
While the Centre as well as the BJP MPs might feign ignorance to the growing demand for these institutions, they conveniently forget the promises of sanctioning a tribal university and a mining university in the State, as assured in the Andhra Pradesh Reorganisation Act.
The State government also sanctioned about 300 acres for the tribal university at Jakaram in Mulugu district and urged the Centre to utilise Youth Training Centre (YTC) for immediately launching operations. However, the union government is yet to respond.
As IT and Industries Minister KT Rama Rao rightly questioned the double standards of the Modi government in sanction of educational institutions, “Despite numerous requests from the Telangana government, no educational institutions were sanctioned by the union government in last seven years. If this ain’t discrimination, what is?”
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