The threat of indefinite closure of the professional colleges continues to loom large as the talks between their managements and the Group of Ministers (GoM) did not yield positive results for the second consecutive day on Saturday.

The managements continued to insist on an assurance from the government for the release of at least half (Rs. 950 crore) of the pending dues of current year, totalling to about Rs. 1,900 crore for Group I colleges - engineering, MBA, MCA and Pharmacy colleges, before February-end. As the government did not give any concrete assurance, the talks had been postponed to February 16.

Representatives of the Consortium of Professional Colleges' Managements held discussions with the GoM comprising C. Damodar Rajnarsimha, Pithani Satyanarayana and B. Saraiah here on Saturday. M. Malla Reddy, Chief Patron of the Consortium of 12 associations, N. Ramesh Babu, chairman and Nova Krishna Rao, working president, were among others, who represented the managements in the talks.

The managements expressed concern that the government which released over Rs. 2,400 crore under the Rachabanda programme was, however, not keen on releasing the pending dues to professional colleges whose managements were suffering acute financial crisis.

The government asked the managements to secure loans from the commercial banks to tide over the crisis. It offered to stand guarantee for the loans and eventually take them over. But the two sides could not reach an agreement on who would bear the interest on the loans. The Consortium reiterated its stand on indefinite closure of the colleges, if the government failed to release the funds before the month-end.