The Government of Andhra Pradesh dilly-dallying on the fees reimbursement got ample wrath from Supreme Court. The Respected Court rightly observed that the Government can’t go back on something that it promised for such a wide range of public.

I am personally against populist schemes that have potential to endlessly make holes to State exchequer. However, once such scheme starts implementing, the Government has no moral right to leave out the beneficiaries in the middle of nowhere. If the Government wants to take out the scheme, then it should at least continue the scheme for the current batches of students to complete their coursework and stop extending it to new batches of students.

Ideally, if the Government pays education fees for students, it should have a vision of how such expense should lead to direct or indirect revenues in the long run. Each students who gets a benefit of a lakh of rupees, say, definitely has the potential to bring in that much indirect revenue to the Government in the long run, if proper environment is created where these students can excel in their careers and bring in good economy (read pay taxes.) The Government should have a blueprint on how it can nurture such an economy and should have a plan on how it will withstand these expenses till such economy starts paying off.

In my last few months of interaction with students, majority of them from financially weaker sections, I am finding very good talent getting benefited from such schemes. If such a scheme is not there, their talent would definitely be left unpolished or would take a much more painful path to get polished. I hope Government finds a way to extend help to such rightful beneficiaries in future, yet controls huge outflows of money from treasury.