Tech, pharma fee decision on July 4

The Admissions and Fee Regulation Committee (AFRC) will finalise the fee for engineering and pharmacy courses on July 4 and for MBA and MCA courses on July 6.

The AFRC, comprising retired judges, met here on Wednesday and discussed the matter with the representatives of private professional colleges. The colleges demanded a hike of 40 per cent to 60 per cent citing additional expenditure on account of UGC’s new pay scales and increase in property tax. The colleges demanded the fee to be raised from the present Rs
32,500 to Rs 55,000 per annum.

However, the officials of the higher education department who were present at the meeting strongly objected to this. The officials contended that the fee had been hiked 22 per cent since 2006-07. The fee hike will put more burden on the state government because as many as 70 per cent of the total students admitted are financed by the government under the fee reimbursement scheme for reserved quota students.

While urban colleges demanded raising the management quota seats to about 50 per cent from the existing 25 per cent, the rural colleges opposed this saying that there are few takers for management quota seats in rural colleges and are not in a position to fill up even the present 25 per cent quota.
Sources in the AFRC said that it may agree only for a moderate hike in fee structure. It is also considering the option of increasing the management quota seats by a small percentage.