The Kerala Self-Financing Engineering Colleges’ Management Association has decided to retain last year’s fee structure for the 2014-15 academic year.
At a meeting here on Sunday, the association rejected a government proposal for a uniform fee structure made at a meeting last week.
Since the government was against raising the fee, the association would follow the fee structure agreed upon in the 2013-14 academic year.
Citing that about 20,000 engineering seats were lying vacant in the 108 self-financing colleges, the association said it would request the government not to grant no-objection certificate for more engineering colleges. The association claimed that a uniform fee of Rs.75,000 a year and an additional fee of Rs.10,000 for management seats were not enough as the colleges had to provide good facilities and pay UGC scale to teachers.
The association secretary told The Hindu that the dialogue with the government would continue. As per last year’s fee structure, the colleges will be admitting 25 per cent students from the economically weaker sections at a fee of Rs.40,000 a year. For the rest of the 25 per cent government quota, the fee is Rs.65,000 (Rs.40,000 plus a special fee of Rs.25,000).
Students in the 35 per cent management quota will have to pay Rs.1.24 lakh. The management quota students will also have to make an interest-free refundable deposit of Rs.1.5 lakh. Those in the 15 per cent NRI quota will have a fee of Rs.1.75 lakh and deposit Rs.1.5 lakh.
