The Andhra Pradesh High Court has directed the state government to deposit the fee reimbursement amount under the Jagananna Vidya Deevena scheme directly to their colleges, instead of crediting them to the students’ mothers’ accounts. The court was hearing a petition from a group of colleges that had challenged two government orders related to the scheme. The petitioner’s counsel argued that the method of depositing fees to beneficiaries’ mothers’ accounts had resulted in problems for colleges, as nearly 40% of students’ mothers who had received the scheme amount had not paid the fees.
Under the Jagananna Vidya Deevena scheme, students from SC, ST, BC, EBC, Kapu, Minority and differently-abled categories pursuing post-matric courses, from training courses after class 10 at Industrial Training Institutes (ITI) to PhD programmes (except intermediate) are given scholarships in the form of fee reimbursements. While the fee reimbursement amount was earlier directly credited to colleges, a government order (GO MS 28) passed in June 2020 said that the amount would be released to the beneficiaries’ mothers’ accounts to empower the women to hold the college accountable to provide adequate infrastructure and good quality of education.
In another government order (GO MS 64) passed in November 2020, the government said that colleges cannot insist on fee payment at the time of admission. Mothers would be counselled by government officials on regular fee payment and holding college managements accountable, the order said, with a clause that if a mother “does not pay the fees to the college without valid ground and misuses the amount, then the government will not be responsible for coverage of the students concerned under the JVD scheme from the next quarter.”
Hearing a petition challenging these two government orders, a single-judge bench of Justice K Vijaya Lakshmi set aside GO MS 28 and several clauses from GO MS 64, The New Indian Express reported. The petitioners’ counsel submitted that while the government had released Rs 671.63 crore to 10.89 lakh beneficiaries under the scheme, only 6.49 lakh students (60%) had paid Rs 470.15 crore in college fees, while the remaining 40% of students’ mothers had not paid the fees despite receiving the amount, according to Deccan Chronicle.
Justice Vijaya Lakshmi observed that if a mother fails to pay the fees, and government shuns responsibility by not covering fees from the subsequent quarter, this would lead to students discontinuing their education. The judge observed that depositing the amount in mothers’ accounts does not ensure the main objective of the scheme, which is to ensure students’ education is continued. Noting that parents can always complain about inadequate facilities or education quality regardless of whether they receive the scholarship amount, the court set asked the government to deposit the fees directly to college managements’ bank accounts.