There will be no ceiling for fee in private professional colleges

Govt. holds meeting with private college managements on 2006 Act

There will be no upper limit to the fee fixed by private professional colleges for the 2014–15 admissions.

The former Karnataka High Court judge Ajit J. Gunjal, chairperson of the ‘Fee regulatory committee’ formed to implement the Karnataka Professional Educational Institutions (Regulation of Admission and Fixation of Fee) Act, 2006, on Monday made it clear that no such ceiling would be fixed.

Interacting with reporters for the first time since being appointed the chairperson, Mr. Gunjal, on the sidelines of a meeting with private college management representatives here, said, “What students can pay or cannot is not considered when colleges submit the details. We fix their limits after allowing them to fix their own fee. There is no provision for the committee to take suggestions or complaints from the students.”

Earlier, addressing the management representatives, he said: “The principle of natural justice will consider factors such as the location of the college, the nature of the course and the infrastructure and coaching provided. Nobody needs to be apprehensive about the committee. We will visit the colleges, if necessary, to check the infrastructure.”

‘Cross subsidy’

Higher Education Principal Secretary Rajneesh Goel, while maintaining that students admitted under the 50 per cent reservation in private colleges would be paying the same fee as the other half of students, said that the principle of ‘cross subsidy’ could be used by the colleges for them. He hinted at the fee collected from NRI students, for whom there is 15 per cent reservation, could be utilised for this.

On the fee fixed for 2014 being applicable to three batches for all years of study, S. Kumar of the Consortium of Medical, Engineering and Dental Colleges of Karnataka (COMEDK), suggested that “incremental projection” must be factored in as the fee would be the same for batches graduating in 2021 (for medical).

Seat surrendering

Asked to react to the apprehension put forth by a college representative that they may not be able to fill all the seats on their own (without government-quota), Mr. Goel said the option to surrender management seats to the government was still applicable.

The former High Court judge V. Jagannathan, who heads the ‘Admission overseeing committee’ said only merit would decide admissions, and quashed all doubts about having tests other than the Common Entrance Test (CET) and the one to be conducted by a consortium of private, unaided colleges. This was in response to claims by private, deemed and minority institutions that they were allowed to conduct their own entrance tests.

To a query on the implementation of the Karnataka Educational Institutions (Regulations of Admission in the Hyderabad Karnataka Region) Order 2013, which provides for reservation of 70 per cent of the available seats in the Hyderabad Karnataka region and 8 per cent seats in institutions State wide, Mr. Goel said the government had sought legal opinion on this.