HYDERABAD: About 38 private engineering college owners are planning to sell their institutions before the commencement of Eamcet this year.

The move comes following the Telangana government's decision to cut down on funds for the fee reimbursement scheme, the college managements said.

Earlier, the government used to spend Rs 1,750 crore towards reimbursement of fee of 14 lakh students, enrolled for post-matric studies. But after the TRS government started streamlining the process, only eight lakh students are expected to benefit from the scheme.

As per the new guidelines, students with 75 per cent attendance, 50 per cent marks in first year of plus-two and with a family income of below Rs one lakh a year, are eligible for reimbursement of tuition fees. While this move was introduced in 2012 by the then chief minister Kiran Kumar Reddy in undivided AP, the process is expected to become stringent from the coming academic year with TRS government deciding to implement it more vigorously.

Facing a bleak future, college managements in Telangana have announced the sale of 30 colleges apart from eight other independent college managements coming up with the same proposal.

"The plan was to sell about 75 colleges in 2012 . And some of the college managements managed to do the same by the end of 2013. However, in and around Hyderabad and in some districts like Medak and Karimnagar, we are expecting more colleges being put up for sale owing to the new government policy," said an AICTE official.

Currently Telangana has over 350 engineering colleges with around 2 lakh seats even as just 1.5 lakh students have applied for engineering entrance test.

Several colleges are yet to be paid their fee dues amounting to Rs 600 crore in the state. The managements are expected to put up the institutions for sale once their dues are paid in June.