The managing committee of the Sri Sai Baba National College (SSBN) has decided not to enhance the fee structure of all courses for the current academic year following an appeal by District Collector Nagalakshmi Selvarajan after a two-hour discussion with the committee members in the Collectorate on Tuesday.
The management will spend money from its reserves to pay salaries for the new teachers to be recruited in place of 12 surrendered aided lecturers.
Students of the college were upset as the managing committee of the college had sent a notice to all the Intermediate students to pay the difference of amount between the fees for aided seats and non-aided seats fixed by the management.
While Anantapur District Educational Trust Chairman P.L.N. Reddy claimed that Monday’s incident was a political manipulation by the CPI(M), Telugu Desam Party and Jana Sena Party, other committee members differed with his opinion and said they had called the police into the college premises when a large number of students gathered there.
Internal differences between the members in the governing council came to the fore at the press conference organised by the Anantapur District Educational Trust to clarify Monday’s incident. One of the vocal governing council members and lawyer P.G. Vittal alleged that opinions of all members were not being taken into consideration before taking a decision, and that fee enhancement was one of them.
He was of the opinion that as the college land was purchased and donated by philanthropist Sirivaram Adinarayana in 1942 for public education, the Trust must adhere to principles and pointed out that the majority of the infrastructure was developed with public or government contribution.
Mr. P.L.N. Reddy said the management decided to surrender aided teachers as they wanted to go back to the government service and the enhancement of fees amount was fixed at 50% of the amount suggested by the government.
About 90% of the students in the college study under a fee reimbursement scheme of the government and cannot afford to pay on their own said a Trust member V.K. Ranga Reddy said at the press conference.
