BENGALURU: The Visvesvaraya Technological University (VTU) has hiked the affiliation fee of engineering colleges in an attempt to generate more revenue. It has been hiked at least two times the existing fee.
Addressing reporters here on Thursday, Vice-Chancellor Karisiddappa said there was no hike in tuition fees for students. The permanent affiliation fee for application has been increased from Rs 1,000 in 2016-17 to Rs 2,000 for 2017-18. The fee to start a new engineering and architecture college has been hiked from Rs 1 lakh to Rs 3 lakh and Rs 5 lakh respectively. The hike is steeper for autonomous colleges.
The application fee has been increased from Rs 10,000 to Rs 30,000 while the processing fee has been increased from Rs 2.5 lakh to Rs 5 lakh. Charges for Local Inquiry Committee or monitoring has been hiked from Rs 25,000 to Rs 1 lakh.
Karisiddappa said the varsity generates at least Rs 110 crore from affiliation fee per year. At present, he said the varsity did not have a cash crunch. VTU needs Rs 6 crore every month for maintenance and paying salary to its staff. He said funds are insufficient to support research and development.