Members of the All India Student Federation (AISF) were detained by the police, on Monday, in Hyderabad as they attempted to protest in the Telangana Assembly. The student organisation has given a ‘Chalo Assembly’ protest call alleging a lack of funds allocated to the education sector in the Telangana Budget.
Few student leaders from the organisation, including its national coordinator, Stalin, were detained by the police early Monday morning in order to prevent the protest. However, a group of students led by state executive members, Naresh Gyara and Sriman Marri, showed up near the state Assembly and surprised the security, before they were taken away by the police
The students are alleging that the state government’s allocation of funds to the public education sector in the state was meager and decided to march in protest to the Assembly, where Budget sessions are underway. Even as the tension mounted, with students coming and raising slogans and flags, the police stopped the march near Gun Park and took them away.
However, the student leaders were later released after brief preventive custody.
AISF students have claimed that Osmania University was not granted a single rupee in the Budget. Earlier this week, the state government proposed a total expenditure of Rs 2,30,825.96 crore for the financial year 2021-22.
The state government while announcing the Budget said that Rs 4,000 crore will be allocated under a new education scheme, which would be used to provide basic facilities in all government schools and to introduce modern technology-based teaching.
While school education was allocated an estimated budget of Rs 11,735 crore, higher education was allocated Rs 1,873 crore.
According to AISF, the allocation for the education sector is less than 1% of the total state Budget proposed for the financial year.
Student organisations in Telangana, for some time, have been demanding adequate financial allocations to state-run universities and institutions and the filling of the vacancies of teaching and non-teaching staff positions.
Stalin said that the allocation given to higher education in the state is not enough to even address the vacancies and other problems in Osmania University alone.
He told TNM, "The poor allocation to higher education in the Budget shows the negligent attitude towards the public education sector in the state, we want the government to increase the share given to education in the state Budget, otherwise educating the poor will become tough."