Consortium of Self Financing Arts and Science Colleges in the State have appealed to the government to release the SC, ST scholarship amount due to colleges to help them pay the salaries of their staff and keep the institutions running.
P. Selvaraj, secretary of the consortium, said as much as ₹1,600 crore was pending under the scholarship scheme for colleges. Each college would get several lakhs of rupees if the money was paid.
“Fees in engineering colleges run to as much as ₹80,000 per student. Even if the government can pay just half of the pending amount, we would be happy. It would bring a lot of relief as we have to pay the salaries to the staff,” he said.
"The government could offer loans to tide over the next three months and we could repay the loan after six months. The government could also give us the option of relief on interest on loans for three months," he said.
Meanwhile, a private engineering college chairman said most of the colleges have to take loan to run the institutions.
