BENGALURU: Engineering colleges in the state that are demanding excess admission fees from under-graduate aspirants may pay a heavy price soon — lose their recognition.
The Union Ministry of Human Resource Development (MHRD) has warned all the technical education institutions in India that their affiliation would be withdrawn if they demand excess fee from students.
In a written reply submitted to the Lok Sabha on Wednesday, HRD Minister Smriti Irani said, “There is competition among the students due to limited seats in government and reputed private institutions. Overall, there is surplus capacity in the engineering sector with 8,44,328 seats remaining vacant in 2014-15. Some instances of taking excess fee have come to the notice of the All-India Council of Technical Education. Any institution reported to be charging capitation fee shall be liable for punitive action, including withdrawal of approval....”
The ministry has called upon students, parents and the general public not to pay any capitation fee or fee over and above whatever is mentioned in the institution’s prospectus/ the fee prescribed by the state government. Complaints can be sent to the Grievance Redressal Committee of the institution and, if it gives an unsatisfactory response, to the ombudsman.
Situation in State
In Karnataka, there have been several complaints about colleges demanding excess fee for seats secured under the Common Entrance Test (CET) quota.
This year, the colleges have openly asked students to pay the excess fee and even put up those details on their websites. The excess fee demanded ranges between `13,000 and `30,000.
The colleges charging excess fee include city-based institutes like RV College of Engineering, Sapatagiri College of Engineering, Dayananda Sagar College of Engineering, Nitte Meenakshi Institute of Technology, M S Ramaiah Institute of Technology, BMS College of Engineering, and Sir M Visvesvaraya Institute of Technology.
According to the official notification issued by the state government after signing a consensual agreement with private professional college managements, no colleges are allowed to demand extra from students over the fee mentioned in the agreement — `45,000 for students getting admissions through CET-2015 (government quota).
M K Panduranga Setty, secretary of the Karnataka Unaided Private Engineering Colleges’ Association, said, “As it is mentioned in the statement of the HRD minister, colleges can charge a developmental fee.”