BHUBANESWAR: Pay or perish. This seems to be the road taken by many private engineering colleges. With the Government playing its part, the institutions that have mushroomed across the State have gone on a looting spree forcing the guardians to pay through the nose.
Any resistance has met with retaliation. Either the students are not allowed to appear for the examinations or they are condemned to the ignominy of back papers. Thus, most of the parents have been cowed into submission. With the fee structure committee formed by the Government yet to determine the admission fees for professional and technical institutions for 2008-09 and 2009-10 academic sessions, institutes are imposing hefty admission and tuition fees.
As per the Orissa Professional Educational Institution (Regulation of admission and fixation of fees) Act, 2007, admission fee decided for individual institutes by the committee is valid for three years. The last time the committee had determined the fee was in 2007, which stands valid for the current academic session. Any violation of the Act will attract a penalty up to Rs 10 lakh and jail term up to three years.
Ignoring the committee, many engineering colleges have formulated slabs of their own and are demanding tuition fee much higher than fixed. Money receipts available with `The New Indian Express’ show that Indus College of Engineering has been collecting tuition fee of Rs 64,500 from each student of 2008 entrants as against Rs 40,000 fixed by the committee.
The institute had raised the admission fees for 2008 batch students from the fixed Rs 40,000 to Rs 50,000. Not stopping at that, the managements have demanded Rs 14,500 more as arrear from the same students, while fixing the tuition fees at Rs 64,500 for the current year without approval.
Students failing to pay would be debarred from appearing for the next semester, they have warned. Objecting to the illegal demand, students have petitioned Chief Minister Naveen Patnaik requesting action against the management.
Admitting that many engineering colleges are indulging in the unscrupulous practices of collecting tuition fees arbitrarily, Industries Secretary Saurav Garg told this paper that show-cause notices have been issued to 43 institutes for violating the norms. Purusottam Institute of Technology and Engineering, Rourkela has been derecognised following similar complaint from the students and their parents, he said.