A year after the Karnataka government issued an order to refund the tuition fees of Scheduled Caste (SC) students who get Management and Non-Resident Indian (NRI) quota seats in engineering, medical and other professional courses, no student has received any refund so far.
The Social Welfare Department has released ₹20 crore for refunding the fees of these students in the first quarter of the current year’s Budget recently, but it is yet to reach students. Some students and parents have alleged that the grant has been used for other projects.
“My son was admitted to Ambedkar Medical College in Bengaluru last year under management quota seat by paying ₹12 lakh. I took a bank loan and paid the college fees. However, the government has not yet reimbursed the fees even though it said it would bear the cost. We have also taken a loan for the II year MBBS fees. Despite several requests to the Social Welfare Department, the officials have not refunded the fees,” lamented Suresh, the parent of a beneficiary student from Vijayapura district.
How scheme works
For professional courses, the Social Welfare Department is refunding the fees to SC students whose annual family income is within ₹2.50 lakh per annum for government seats in government colleges and government quota seats in private colleges. The government also provides tuition fees to medical and engineering students from SC communities whose family income is above ₹2.50 lakh but within ₹10 lakhs from the funds allocated to the Medical Education and Technical Education Departments under Scheduled Caste Sub Plan (SCSP) for Scheduled Castes and Tribal Sub-Plan (TSP) for Scheduled Tribes (SCSP/TSP).
Last year, the State government has issued an order on May 9, 2025, to fully refund the tuition fees to SC students whose family income is up to a maximum of ₹10 lakhs and who have secured seats in private engineering and medical colleges under the management and NRI quota. However, thsi is yet to materialise.
In the current year’s State budget, the Social Welfare Department had allocated ₹80 crore for the first quarter of the current year’s budget allocated for SCP/TSP programmes for reimbursement of candidates who got management and NRI quota, engineering and medical seats, hostel expenses, and purchase of essential things for pre-matric and post-matric hostels and other expenses, of which a total of ₹20 crore has been released.
With students not getting the money, they are now alleging that all the money has been used to purchase material and none to reimburse tution fees.
Protest warned
“The fund released for reimbursing the fees of management quota and NRI quota students has been used to purchase cots, beds and other material for hostels by the Social Welfare Department. The Social Welfare Department should immediately refund the fees to the students. If it fails, we will start a protest,” warned Venugopal Maurya, State convener, Democratic Dalith Student Federation.
The Commissioner of the Social Welfare Department was not available for comment.
Published – July 03, 2026 01:28 am IST
