
NEW DELHI: Telangana Chief Minister A Revanth Reddy on Tuesday met Union Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman and urged her to supoort the state government to strengthen education sector as it requires Rs 30,000 crore for the development of Young India Schools and other educational institutions.
He also appealed the Finance Minister to exempt spending on construction of Young India schools from FRBM limit.
The Chief Minister during his meeting with Sitharaman requested her to extend all kinds of support to the Telangana government to strengthen the education sector as the government has already introduced revolutionary changes in education recently, a governmebt release stated.
Reddy briefed the Union Minister about the measures initiated to provide corporate-style education to the BC, SC, ST and minority sections who constituted about 90 percent in the state.
A state delegation led by Reddy met Sitharaman at her office in North Block on Tuesday and during the meeting, the Chief Minister said that 105 Young India Integrated Residential Schools are being constructed in 105 Assembly Constituencies.
"The construction work of the four schools has already started and tenders for the remaining schools have been finalized. Each school will accommodate 2,560 students and 2.70 lakh students will get the opportunity to study in all schools in the state," Reddy apprused the Finance Minister.
The Chief Minister also briefed the Union Minister about the requirement of the funds to construct the Young India schools with the state of the art facilities including labs, sport stadium etc. The total cost of the construction of the schools will be Rs 21,000 crore. Rs 9,000 crores will be spent on providing modern labs and other infrastructure in junior, degree, technical colleges and other higher educational institutions.
To meet the financial requirement for the construction of the residential schools, the Chief Minister appealed to Sitharaman to permit the state government to constitute a special Corporation to mobilize funds and also exempt from the FRBM limit.
Reddy told the Union Minister that the state government was spending huge funds on the education sector considering it as an "investment".
The Chief Minister also requested the union minister to allow restructuring of the loans as the previous government had arbitrarily borrowed loans at high-interest rates and repayment of loans had become a huge burden on the state government.
The union minister responded positively to the Chief Minister's requests, a government release said.