Hyderabad: The engineering colleges managements’ association on Sunday kicked up a fresh row by threatening to launch an agitation soon if the state government fails to clear the fee reimbursement dues worth Rs 3,737 crore. 

    Of the total Rs 4,037 crore fee reimbursement arrears, the state government had so far paid only Rs 300 crore, the managements representatives said. As per the Supreme Court’s directive, the managements were to pay the fee reimbursement money to students before January 29. The management representatives, who conduced a meeting in the city on Sunday, stated that they will go on agitation from February 15 and asked the state government to clear the dues before that time. The court had directed the state government to pay the money from its coffers before January 29 failing which the colleges can collect the fee from students. 

    “Since we do not want to trouble the s t u d e n t s, we are planning to go on agitation against the government. We gave the government seven months time to clear the dues. We are even planning to file a contempt petition against the state government,” said K V K Rao, management representative, St Mary’s Group of Institutions.