Married women are not eligible

Hyderabad March 1: In what appears to be a throwback to the medieval ages, The TRS govt has said that only unmarried women are eligible to pursue the education in the social welfare residential women s degree colleges in the state.Strangely, the rule has been in place for a year, and 4,000 such women are studying in these hostels and will move to the second year in the coming academic year.There are 23 residential degree colleges for women with each having an intake capacity of 280 students per year wherein right from education to food, everything is given free of cost to the students. Seventy-five percent of the seats are reserved for SCs and the remaining 25% are for STs/BCs and general category.A notification by the Telangana Social Welfare Residential Educational Institutions Society (TSWREIS) inviting applications for admissions into the residential degree colleges specifically says, "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."Making it clear that it was no oversight, officials explained why they are restricting admission to unmarried women. "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," TSWREIS content manager B Venkat Raju said.