A decision by the Syndicate of the Mahatma Gandhi University to levy fees for various services offered to its autonomous colleges has hit the Ernakulam Maharaja’s College hard.
Being the only government college to have been granted with the autonomous status, Maharaja’s may feel the pinch as the fee for the services range from ₹100 to ₹1 lakh.
As per the Syndicate decision, autonomous colleges will have to pay ₹50,000 for submission or re-submission of schemes and syllabuses, strength and eligibility criteria of each undergraduate programme. For the postgraduate programme, the corresponding charge is ₹1 lakh.
Faculty members of the college pointed out that the varsity offered about 22 undergraduate programmes. Going by the directive, the institution will have to pay ₹11 lakh for approval of schemes and syllabuses of courses. The college offers 20 postgraduate programmes. It will have to pay ₹20 lakh for getting the syllabuses and schemes approved by the varsity, according to the new directive.
The impact of the order is likely to fall on the students seeking admission to various courses in the academic year 2017-18. For the verification of qualifying certificate of each candidate, the varsity will collect ₹100 as fee. The college authorities would have no other option but to collect the money from about 700 students seeking admission in the next academic cycle.
The teachers said the Syndicate decision would hit the college hard compared to other autonomous colleges in the aided sector. Maharaja’s College depends mainly on the support from the government and it may find it difficult to raise money by either launching self-financing courses or collecting additional money from students.
The varsity order stated that the autonomous colleges would have to pay ₹2,000 as fee for marginal increase of seats or programmes. All the colleges will also have to pay fee for other services at par with the existing fee structure in the affiliated colleges.
