Chief Minister YS Jagan Mohan Reddy has released Rs.703 crore under Jagananna Vidya Deevena for total fee reimbursement of 9.95 lakh students for the first quarter of 2023. The amount will be directly credited into the bank accounts of the students’ mothers.
Addressing a huge gathering of students and their parents here on Wednesday after releasing the amount with the click of a button, the Chief Minister said that pursuing higher education was the right of the students and the government had been implementing the Jagananna Vasathi Deevena and Jagananna Vidya Deevena to help poor students pursue higher education.
“As suggested by social reformers like Maulana Abul Kalam Azad, Dr BR Ambedkar and Savitri Bai Phule, higher education only can eradicate poverty,” he said, adding that Vasathi Deevena and Vidya Deevena were being implemented with commitment to drive away poverty from the society.
“Under Jagananna Vasathi Deevena and Jagananna Vidya Deevena alone, the government has so far spent Rs. 14, 912.43crore including the arrears of Rs. 1,778 crore kept pending by the previous TDP government,” he said, adding that the government was disbursing the Vidya Deevena funds at the end of each quarter.
Strongly objecting to the campaign of the TDP that the government had been pushing the State towards insolvency with Vasathi Deevena and Vidya Deevena, he said the expenditure incurred on education was the investment for the development of human resources. “Soon, AP will become the care-of address for skilled man power and show the way for the entire country,” he stated, asking the students to pursue higher education goals unmindful of the expenses involved.
People are witnessing revolutionary changes in the educational sector from nursery to PG with the implementation of unique programmes like Amma Vodi, Vidya Deevena, Vasathi Deevena, Vidya Kanuka and Videsi Vidya Deevena, he said, observing digitalisation of classrooms and introduction of CBSE syllabus, bilingual text books, and subject-teacher concept were forcing the corporate schools to compete with government schools.
While the dropout number at the Intermediate level has come down to 22,387 from 81,813 in 2018-19, the number of students pursuing Engineering courses has gone up to 1,20,000 from 87,000, said the Chief Minister, stressing this was an indication of the reforms in the education sector yielding results.
The government wants every family in the State to produce a Satya Nadella, he observed, stating that introduction of job-oriented curriculum, four-year honours degree courses, skill development training programmes and online verticals will help students a lot.
In response to the appeals of Home Minister T Vanitha, the Chief Minister sanctioned Rs 30 crore for the construction of more buildings for the Kovvuru Degree College and agreed to release necessary funds for the construction of lift irrigation scheme to cater to the irrigation needs of Chagallu, Paidimetla and Brahmanagudem, SC and Kapu community halls, Shadi Khana, and Ambedkar Bhavans for the three mandals in Kovvuru constituency and for Jeegurumetta culvert.
District Collector K Madhavi Latha and Home Minister T Vanitha also addressed the public meeting.
