The government on Tuesday threatened to report private engineering college managements to the All-India Council for Technical Education (AICTE), and “other regulatory bodies” if they continue to charge extra fees from students admitted under the government quota through the Common Entrance Test.
The circular, issued by the Department of Higher Education, stated that it would be “constrained to view the same seriously and will be compelled to initiate stringent action”. Last week, a similar circular was issued by the Department of Medical Education to private medical and dental colleges.
Unfazed by repeated warnings from Visvesvaraya Technological University and the Rajiv Gandhi University of Health Sciences, the affiliating universities for professional courses in the State, colleges allegedly continue to charge “extra fees”. This fee ranges between Rs. 15,000 and Rs. 20,000. Colleges that are allegedly flouting the rules include leading institutes in Bangalore in the medical and engineering categories.
Hapless students
Scores of students contacted by The Hindu confirmed that colleges were asking students to pay fees over and above the prescribed government quota seat fee of around Rs. 30,000. For instance, a student who obtained a seat in the Dr. Ambedkar Institute of Technology had to pay an additional Rs. 18,775. A copy of the challan (dated August 27) issued by the institute is with The Hindu .
A circular on the college notice-board offers a break-up for this ‘extra’ component, which goes to 16 separate heads, including ‘language fee’, ‘health check-up fee’, ‘placement and training fee’, and ‘CIL soft-skill training’.
When contacted, P. Venkataramiah, the one-man committee appointed by the government to oversee professional admissions, said he had received 35 complaints against engineering colleges and eight against medical colleges. Terming these developments “unfortunate”, he said he had issued notices to these institutes seeking an explanation for violating the agreement between the government and the colleges. The institutions had been given three weeks to reply. However, this may be too late, given that August 31 is the last date to report at college for those allotted seats under the second stage of the casual vacancy round.
M.K. Panduranga Setty, chairman, Karnataka Unaided Private Engineering Colleges’ Association, said he had written to all colleges “not to exploit the students”. But he justified it saying that each college was expected to charge an additional amount for the extra facilities according to its individual expenditure.
Siddaiah, Principal Secretary, Higher Education, told The Hindu that the department would continue to “mount pressure on college managements”, adding that the department was yet to take a call on whether students who had already paid would get a refund.
