Hyderabad: Seven months after chief minister, A Revanth Reddy, announced a Rs 1,000 crore corpus for Osmania University to upgrade its infrastructure – during his visit to the campus – the state varsity was allocated the amount in Telangana’s 2026-27 budget, tabled on Friday. This is the first time that the 109-year-old institution has received such hefty funding.
“Right from entry gates to academic, research and development blocks, we have identified 19 items that require infrastructure upgrades. Basic planning, designing and identification of consultants is completed. Now, we will go for final drawings, designs and estimations and will call for tenders. The foundation of the first building will take place within three months,” Kumar M, vice-chancellor, OU told TOI.
He said that construction will be taken up one after the other and the remaining amount will be carried forward to the next financial year.
The other bright spot of the state budget was the Rs 400 crore given to Veeranari Chakali Ilamma Women’s University, (erstwhile Koti Women’s College).
“Academically we are on par with other universities. We already have 40 undergraduate courses and over 20 post graduate courses. This budget will take us forward in terms of infra. The amount will be utilised for construction of academic block, hostels, VC lodge, guest house, auditorium, among others,” said Loka Pavani, principal of the varsity.
‘Sector’s allocation paltry’
While appreciating the move, academics raised concern over the overall “paltry” allocation for Telangana’s education sector. With 26,674 crore of the total outlay of 3.24 lakh crore earmarked for education, they said the percentage allotted (8.2%) is only marginally higher than the 7.6% given in 2025-26. They also questioned the govt’s attitude towards other state universities, which are all in dire need of funds.
“This shows a lack of vision or policy of the state to strengthen govt institutes and provide quality education to all children,” said Laxminarayana, professor, University of Hyderabad and organising secretary, Telangana Save Education Committee. He added, “Forget about the 18% (of the total budget) that the Telangana Education Commission recommended, the govt did not even allocate 15% it promised in its manifesto. It is unfortunate that they are not thinking about strengthening the existing network of institutes and instead only spending crores to open new ones.”
Even professors from Kakatiya University, that completed 50 years, said they were disappointed to see nothing come their way. “We were expecting some special fund for the golden jubilee year, but nothing has been announced,” rued R Mallikarjuna Reddy, professor, KU.
Can’t build talent, economy
Academics warned that the govt cannot fulfil its goal of becoming a USD 3 trillion economy by 2047 without investing enough in education and only spending big money in the name of skill university or for reimbursements.
“When technology is changing at a rapid pace and old job roles are being destroyed, how is this budget enough to prepare our students to compete with others across the world? The least the govt should have allocated is 15%. Unless budget is allocated to education, we will be staring at a human resource shortage in the coming years and our people will remain behind,” said A Santosh Kumar, president, Telangana Schools Technical Colleges Employees Association.
