Fact Check: CM Revanth stops fee reimbursement to Telangana pvt colleges? No, Telugu newspaper clipping is fake

Hyderabad: Telangana private professional colleges continue their indefinite strike demanding that the State government release 50 per cent of the pending fee reimbursement dues.

According to the Federation of Associations of Telangana Higher Institutions (FATHI), the total arrears under the fee reimbursement scheme stand at Rs 10,000 crore. The federation claimed that during talks held in September, the government had assured that Rs 1,200 crore would be released before Deepawali, but only Rs 300 crore has been disbursed so far.

On a call given by FATHI, around 2,000 professional colleges, including engineering, pharmacy, MBA, MCA, B.Ed and nursing institutions, launched an indefinite shutdown on November 3.

In this context, a Telugu newspaper clipping is going viral on social media, claiming that Chief Minister A Revanth Reddy has taken a decision to stop the fee reimbursement.

The title of the purported Telugu newspaper clipping reads, ‘Fee Reimbursement Scheme Cancelled’.

The newspaper clipping reads, “CM Revanth Reddy held a special meeting with officials at his residence on the pending fee reimbursement issue in Telangana State. In this meeting, officials gave the CM a report on the vigilance raids conducted on private colleges… He instructed officials to cancel the fee reimbursement scheme from now on.” (Translated from Telugu)

It further states, “He said the government had not given Rs 8,000 crores to substandard colleges, and that there is no need to give business to degree and engineering colleges. He said there is no question of paying the pending reimbursement dues and that they would see it in court.”

The newspaper clipping contains the dateline ‘Hyderabad, Vartha Velugu’. It also contains a banner with ‘Vartha Velugu’ logo, date and a link to the e-paper. It uses an image of CM Revanth at a meeting with other ministers and officials.

The newspaper clipping was shared on X, mentioning points from the clipping captioned, “CM Revanth Reddy takes sensational decision based on vigilance report.” (Translated from Telugu) (Archive)

Posts making similar claims can be seen here and here. (Archive 1, Archive 2)

Fact Check

NewsMeter found that the claim is false. The viral newspaper clipping is fabricated.

Even after using keyword searches, we did not find any news reports or credible social media posts stating that CM Revanth Reddy has decided to stop fee reimbursement to Telangana private colleges.

We followed the link in the banner and found that the webpage does not exist.

We have performed several keyword searches to find the official website of the news outlet ‘Vartha Velugu’. However, there were no relevant search results. According to the DNS lookup website, whatsmydns, we found that the domain epaper.varthavelugu.com is unregistered.

Using reverse image search of the image used in the viral newspaper clipping, we found a report published by Deccan Chronicle on January 25 containing the same image of the CM. Another report published by Namasthe Telangana on January 26 also used the same image. Therefore, it is clear that the image is old.

NewsMeter reached out to the Chief Minister’s Office for clarification on the viral newspaper clipping. Officials dismissed the claim, stating, “This is a fake newspaper clipping. The Chief Minister has not made any such decision, nor was any meeting held. The report is entirely false.”

Sandeep Sultania, Principal Secretary of the State Finance Department, also confirmed that no such decision was ever taken by CM Revanth. “This is absolutely ridiculous handiwork of some trouble creators,” he said.

Vartha Velugu News outlet does not exist. The newspaper clipping has been fabricated. CM Revanth Reddy has not taken any decisions to stop the fee reimbursement. Therefore, NewsMeter concludes that the viral claims are false.

NewsMeter has debunked such viral claims made using fabricated newspaper clippings. You can read the reports here, here and here.