The Puducherry Government has reconstituted the fee committee to determine the fee structure in unaided and professional colleges in the Union Territory.
The committee headed by retired Madras High Court Judge S. Rajeswaran will determine the fees for unaided private colleges based on the availability of infrastructure. Secretary to Higher Education and Secretary to Health are the other members of the committee.
The committee would decide whether the fee proposed by self-financing colleges was justified and would be free to approve the fee structure or to propose some other fee to be charged by the institution, said an official of the Department of Higher and Technical Education. The fees will be applicable to students admitted through the government quota under the Centralised Admission Committee (CENTAC). The fee fixed by the committee would be binding for a period of three years.
“The previous fee committee had recommended the Puducherry Government in 2010 to set up a monitoring committee to attend to cases of irregularities by the private colleges. It had also laid down criteria for selection of members in the committee,” said Vai. Balasubramanian, president, Puducherry State Students and Parents Welfare Association.
However, the government is yet to form the fee monitoring committee and the proposal is still gathering dust.
Mr. Balasubramanian said that all the southern States except Puducherry had constituted two committees, one to fix the fees of the all private professional colleges and another to monitor and take appropriate action against the colleges collecting exorbitant fees.
In the absence of a monitoring committee, professional colleges are collecting excess fee over and above the fee fixed by the committee. This only amounts to charging of capitation fee, he said.
