The Telangana government has decided to help an Adivasi woman, Badavath Madhulatha, pursue her higher education following news reports that she could not afford the steep fees at IIT-Patna despite a high entrance exam score. A report said that Badavath was forced to graze cattle to support her family who are landless agricultural labourers.
Badavath secured an impressive Joint Entrance Examination (JEE) rank of 824 under the Scheduled Tribe (ST) category, and needed a sum of over 2.5 lakh rupees for admission into the B.Tech course in Engineering Physics. Badavath’s family needed to pay IIT-Patna Rs 2,51,831 by July 27 to get the admission.
Of the total amount needed, tuition fees of Rs 1 lakh will be waived off by the institute under the SC/ST category. Telangana Chief Minister Revanth Reddy on July 23 announced that the state government will provide the rest of the amount. According to reports, the Chief Minister has asked Telangana State Scheduled Tribes Cooperative Finance Corporation Limited (TRICOR) DGM to release Rs 1,51,831 to the bank account of district tribal development officer in Rajanna Sircilla, where Badavath hails from.
However, Badavath’s former teacher at the Tribal Welfare Junior College Lingam Bukya told TNM that the sanctioned amounts would only be sufficient for the first year of a four-year-course. “The family expects total expenses to go up to Rs 5 lakh and are considering asking for donations. We hope that the state government will intervene again if needed,” he said, adding that Bharat Rashtra Samithi (BRS) leaders in Rajanna Sircilla have been in touch with the family. It is to be noted that Sircilla is the constituency from where BRS leader KT Rama Rao was elected, in the recent Assembly elections in the state.