Hyderabad: The controversy-ridden Andhra Pradesh State Minorities Finance Corporation has done it again. This time it has inordinately delayed the renewal of educational loans to eligible minority students putting their career in jeopardy.

It was only on Tuesday that the corporation issued loan amount of Rs. 55.22 lakhs to 192 students belonging to the districts of Hyderabad (75), Medak (46), Kurnool (20), Guntur (14), Adilabad (12), Nizamabad (8), Ranga Reddy (6), Prakasam (4), Khammam (4) and East Godavari (3). Loans for the other districts are yet to be released. The disbursal of loan came about at the initiative of the new Managing Director, Mirza Hasan Ali Baig, who took over recently.

Many engineering students couldn't appear for the ongoing second year annual examination as some college managements refused permission for non-payment of tuition fee.

Eligibility norm

The college authorities say they have not received the fee, while the students say despite their repeated reminders the corporation didn't release the cheques. The latter, however, maintains that it was only two days ago that the applications were received from the students. The Moulana Abul Kalam Azad educational loan scheme was introduced last year with a view to facilitate poorer sections of minorities to take up job oriented and professional courses. The eligibility criterion is that the parent or guardian of the student should have an annual income of Rs. 40,000 in rural areas and Rs. 55,000 in urban areas. During 2004-05, the corporation extended loan of Rs. 117.52 lakh to 365 students all over the State. This year it was targeted to provide Rs. 2 crore loan to 558 students. However, the corporation is flooded with 5,500 applications. Officials at the corporation deny that there was any delay on their part. In the normal course, the loans should have been renewed and fresh ones sanctioned in a month of reopening of colleges. The delay this year was due to extension of the last date for submission of applications by a month from August 31to September 30.

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