Karnataka Private Engineering Colleges Managements Association has said that the tuition fee for BE course under government quota may be in the range of Rs 65,000 to Rs 1.35 lakh this year. The fee for management quota seats would be higher still, it said.
Last year, Rs 45,000 had been fixed as tuition fee for government quota seats in private colleges.
Panduranga Setty, president of the association, said: “We have asked private colleges to submit the cost incurred per BE seat. The cost would include the fee for the present academic year and the fee that will be projected for the next four years. The cost per student would be anywhere between Rs 65,000 and Rs 1.35 lakh depending upon the college.” Well-established colleges charged more while the newly started ones charged less, he said.
The association would not compromise on the fee and private colleges would start making admissions even without government’s consent, he said. “The private colleges are not bound by any agreement as per a Supreme Court ruling,” Setty added. Last year, though the government signed an agreement with the private college managements over the fee structure and fixed the tuition fee for BE course at Rs 45,000, most colleges collected more money from the students as library fee, lab fee, etc.
A one-man regulatory committee was constituted to oversee fee collection by the private colleges, and based on its report several colleges were issued notices to return the excess fee collected from the students. Most colleges, however, did not return the excess fee. So the government has asked for another report on the developments on its earlier order.
Sources in Higher Education Department said, “The department will hold a meeting in the first week of April to finalise the seat-sharing matrix and the fee structure between the private and government colleges.”
A Karnataka Examination Authority (KEA) official said, “The preparations for the Common Entrance Test 2013 are on but the fee structures for MBBS, BDS and BE courses are yet to be finalised by the government.”