With Thursday being the last day to report to colleges offering professional courses for those who have obtained seats under the Common Entrance Test (CET) quota, many students are complaining that private colleges are illegally charging “extra fees”, which is in addition to the fee prescribed by the government.
The excess fee ranges from Rs. 20,000 to a whooping Rs. 1.31 lakh. The Karnataka Examinations Authority (KEA) helplines have been flooded with calls from frantic students caught off guard.
Left in the lurch
Private college managements are charging fees under various subheads such as tuition fees, placement fee and sports fee. What has made matters worse for the students is that the KEA is still not aware of the committee that would oversee admissions for this academic year. Students are left in the lurch and there is no committee to redress grievances.
Some students came to the KEA office earlier this week to get their seats cancelled and withdraw their demand draft as they could not afford the “excess fees”. One of the candidates who was allotted a mechanical engineering seat in a Chickballapur college got his seat cancelled on Tuesday as the college was demanding Rs. 32,000 as tuition and college fees besides Rs. 55,000 as hostel fees.
“We have paid Rs. 37,410 for the seat obtained through the KEA. We do not have the means to pay a huge sum. The authorities told us to complain to the Deputy Commissioner of the district, but we have heard that it is not going help us, and with just one day left, we do not want to lose Rs. 37,410,” he said.
While it has become a routine for engineering colleges to collect fees illegally, what has taken the authorities by surprise is that many pharmacy colleges are charging well over Rs. 1 lakh as excess fees.
College managements, however, defended this practice and said the amount was collected for providing additional facilities.
