In 2024-25, the Telangana government allocated Rs 500 crore for the development of its universities. It spent Rs 5 crores — just 1% of what it had set aside. Across 12 state universities, 74% of professor posts are vacant. Sixteen percent of degree colleges do not have their own buildings. Thirteen colleges are functioning in dilapidated structures where, according to the Telangana Education Commission, students have been injured by falling fans in poorly maintained hostels.
These are not the signs of a state that considers public education as a priority, but exactly the opposite.
When presenting the 2026-27 budget, proposed at Rs 3,24,234 crores, Deputy Chief Minister and Finance Minister Bhatti Vikramarka quoted Mahatma Jyotirao Phule to say that education alone empowers the most marginalised sections of society. Chief Minister Revanth Reddy has repeatedly stated that no amount spent on education is sufficient.
The Congress party’s own election manifesto promised to allocate a minimum of 15% of the state budget to education. The Telangana Education Commission, appointed by this very government, recommended 18%. But the 2026-27 budget allocated 8.2% — less than half the commission’s recommendation, and little more than half the manifesto commitment.
Of the total education allocation, Rs 20,893 crore has gone to school education, Rs 4,650 crore to higher education, and Rs 685 crore to technical education. Within higher education, the breakdown is: Rs 2,641 crore for university education, Rs 839 crore for degree education, and Rs 114 crore for intermediate education.
Budget allocations, however, tell only part of the story. The more revealing picture emerges when allocations are compared against actual expenditure. Here, the data is particularly troubling.
In the 2024-25 budget, Rs 2,850.9 crore was allocated for higher education. Only Rs 2,258 crore was spent, marking a shortfall of nearly Rs 600 crore. This underspending is sharpest in development funds, which are meant for infrastructure, equipment, and institutional capacity. The following figures are drawn from the state’s own budget documents:
The pattern is consistent: maintenance spending, primarily salaries, is largely sustained, but development expenditure, which determines the long-term health of institutions, is almost entirely abandoned. Universities received funds to pay their existing staff but almost nothing to build, repair, or recruit.
It is worth noting that after coming to power, the Congress government released a white paper criticising the previous Bharat Rashtra Samiti (BRS) government for spending only 75% of its education budget, leaving 25% unspent. The figures above indicate that the current government has resorted to mindless underspending in several key categories, and in university development funds, has spent less than 1%.
The consequences of this chronic underfunding are visible across the state’s university system. According to the Telangana Education Commission’s own findings:
74% of professor posts across 12 state universities are vacant
More than 60% of degree colleges lack computer labs
16% of degree colleges do not have their own buildings
13 colleges are functioning in structurally unsafe buildings
Beyond teaching staff, thousands of non-teaching positions, such as laboratory technicians, library staff, or departmental support personnel, remain vacant. University libraries operating on minimal funds are unable to purchase current journals or research publications. The result is that fundamental academic research in these institutions has been severely curtailed.
The 2026-27 budget has received publicity for two specific allocations: Rs 1,000 crore for the development of Osmania University and Rs 400 crore for Chakali Ilamma Women’s University. How much they really spend is already clear. The Finance Minister has explicitly clarified that these funds are earmarked for infrastructure alone and will not be used for faculty recruitment.
For other universities, the allocations are strikingly low. Under development funds, Kakatiya University receives Rs 40 crore. Satavahana, Telangana, Mahatma Gandhi, and Palamuru Universities receive Rs 25 crore each. No separate provisions have been made for faculty recruitment in any of these institutions.
Telangana’s current allocation falls short even by state-level benchmarks. Comparable states such as Karnataka and Andhra Pradesh allocate between 12% and 14% of their state budgets to education, significantly higher than Telangana’s 8.2%.
In fairness, this is not a crisis that began with the Congress government. The pattern of underfunding, non-recruitment, and infrastructure neglect was established during the preceding decade of BRS rule. What the current data shows, however, is that the Congress government, despite its manifesto commitments and its own white paper criticising its predecessor, has continued, and in some respects deepened, this trajectory.
As economist Amartya Sen argued, growth rates alone do not capture human development. A state can record strong GDP growth while allowing its institutions of education and knowledge production to deteriorate. Telangana recorded a growth rate of 10.7% in 2025-26, with per capita income rising to Rs 4,18,931. These are significant numbers. But they coexist with a university system where three out of four faculty posts are empty and development funds remain unspent.
The damage being done to Telangana’s higher education system is not abstract — it has already cost the state a generation of researchers, teachers, and scholars. Reversing it will require more than rhetorical commitment. Specifically, the state government should:
Fill vacant faculty posts: A time-bound recruitment plan for the 732+ documented vacant teaching posts across state universities, to be completed within 12 months.
Utilise allocated development funds: Mandatory quarterly expenditure reviews with public accountability for underspending.
Meet Education Commission’s recommendation: A phased increase toward the 18% allocation recommended by the government’s own commission.
Separate infrastructure and recruitment budgets: Infrastructure funds for Osmania and Chakali Ilamma Universities must not substitute for faculty recruitment allocations.
Independent audit: A public audit of development fund utilisation across all state universities for the past five years.
The Chief Minister rightly said that the budget determines the future direction of the state. However, the direction currently indicated, for its universities at least, is one of managed decline. That is a choice, and it can be reversed.
Professor K Lakshminarayana and Dr G Ramesh are academics based in Telangana.
Views expressed are the authors’ own.