GO 97 gets a deadline
Harish Rao gives the Congress government till September 7 to scrap GO 97 or face a Secretariat protest with polytechnic students. The state says nothing is being privatised; students aren’t buying it.
The government has until September 7 to address the dispute over GO 97.
BRS legislature party deputy leader T. Harish Rao met protesting polytechnic students in Hyderabad on August 25 and set the Congress government a deadline: withdraw GO 97 by September 7 — the day the Assembly meets — or face a siege of the Secretariat with students. He said the issue touches nearly one lakh students across Telangana, and warned the agitation would escalate if the order stays.
Student protests against GO 97 — which brings government polytechnics into the Young India Skills University (YISU) framework — have broken out in Hyderabad, Secunderabad, Mahabubabad and Kothagudem. Left student unions and the Telangana Polytechnic JAC say the move risks diluting diplomas and upending ECET-linked progressions; they want the order scrapped, not explained. After the government formed a six-member committee reportedly headed by adviser K. Keshava Rao, the TP-JAC paused action and sought exam postponements, but only pending talks.
The BJP will shout “reform”; the TDP will discover an opinion. The Congress government’s line is that nothing dramatic is happening — YISU is meant to modernise skills, the diploma structure remains, and scholarships and fee reimbursement continue. It rejects talk of abolishing or privatising polytechnics. That is the claim; the text of GO Ms No. 97 was not on the public record we could find, which is doing the government no favours in a trust gap it created.
What is on record: YISU runs on a public–private partnership law the state passed in 2024, and the Chief Minister reviewed education with YISU’s vice-chancellor and top officials earlier this year. If it is all benign housekeeping, publishing the GO and the committee’s terms of reference should be the easy part. The Congress government in Telangana has till September 7 to act like it believes its own reassurance.