The Indian Institutes of Technology (IITs) have decided to increase the annual fee for undergraduate courses by 80 per cent — from the existing Rs 50,000 to Rs 90,000 — from the new academic session.
The revised fee will be applicable only to the 2013 entrants. However, no tuition and hostel fee will be charged from the students belonging to the Scheduled Castes and Scheduled Tribes categories. Further, IITs will continue with the practice of giving 100 per cent scholarships to students whose parents’ annual income is less than Rs. 4.5 lakh. Some 25 per cent of the total students typically benefit from this.
Announcing the hike here on Monday after the IIT Council meeting, Human Resource Development Minister M.M. Pallam Raju said this had been done to make the IITs financially sustainable, if not profitable. The fee structure would be reviewed every year, he said.
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The last fee hike had been done in the 2008-09 academic session when the annual fee was revised from Rs 25,000 to Rs 50,000.
Monday’s decision follows the IIT Council’s approval to the recommendations of the Group of Directors of IITs and Empowered Task Force for revising the fee for undergraduate students. Members of the Council stressed that the easy loan facility is made available to students and no student, who has qualified the JEE, is denied entry into IITs due to financial constraints.
The Kakodkar Committee had, in fact, recommended increasing the fee for undergraduate, Masters and Ph.D Programmes to the order of Rs 2-2.5 lakh per year which was revised downwards by the Group of Directors and the Empowered Task Force.
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