The Telangana State Government said that only unmarried women will be eligible for pursuing an education in social welfare residential women’s degree colleges in the State. The rule has been in place since a year and 4000 unmarried women are studying in these regional college hostels. They will be moving to second year this academic year.
The Government stated that married women are a distraction at these colleges and banned them. The 23 residential degree colleges have an intake capacity of 280 students per year. The students will be provided everything from education to food and stay. All these are provided free of cost to the students enrolled in these regional colleges. The colleges have a reservation of 75% for the SCs and the remaining 25% are for the STs, BCs and also the General Category students.
This rule came to light only after the Telangana Social Welfare Residential Educational Institutions Society (TSWREIS) released a notification inviting applications for the residential colleges. The notification specified, “The TSWREIS invites applications from women (unmarried) candidates for admission into BA/B.Com/B.Sc 1st year degree courses for the academic year 2017-18.”
Defending their decision and giving a clear picture about the decision, the official content manager B. Venkat Raju explained this and said, “The intention to ensure that other girls in the residential degree colleges do not get distracted because there is every possibility of husbands visiting their wives weekly once or in a fortnight. We do not want any kind of distraction among students.”
Speaking to a popular news daily, the society secretary, Dr. R.S. Praveen Kumar said that the purpose of these colleges was to break the cycle of child marriages. He said, “We don’t encourage married women but at the same time won’t prevent them if they approach us for admission. Our intention is neither to deny nor hurt any one’s feelings.”
This decision did not go down well with the women’s organization and demanded that this notification should be withdrawn. They said that this is a deplorable move and is a disgrace to the concept and institution of marriage in our Country.
