The University of Madras has doubled the affiliation fee for colleges, Vice-Chancellor P. Duraisamy informed the Senate on Saturday.
Mr. Duraisamy said in his introductory remarks that the fee had been hiked from the existing ₹5 lakh to ₹10 lakh for colleges seeking permanent affiliation.
The amendments to the university’s relevant statutes had been made to revise the criteria for granting permanent affiliation to colleges and the Syndicate, at its meeting on February 19, recommended that the same be placed in the Senate for approval.
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Hanifa Ghosh, Principal of Sembium-based Chevalier T. Thomas Elizabeth College for Women, said her institution had applied for permanent affiliation when the cost was ₹1 lakh. Then it was hiked to ₹4 lakh and then ₹5 lakh, yet it had not been given affiliation. Now the criteria had been revised and yet again the university had hiked the fee, she noted.
Mr. Duraisamy said the university had revised the criteria and hence the fee had been necessitated. Ms. Ghosh, however, felt it was unfair on the part of the university to ask for the revised fee when it had probably paid more than that amount considering the number of years that had rolled since her college had applied.
Another senator also raised the issue of high fee, but Mr. Duraisamy said the colleges would have to pay the difference amount.
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Students database
The university has decided to hike the fee for verification and issue of degree certificates and preservation of records. This amount will be collected from the students from the academic year 2018-19 onwards.
Mr. Duraisamy said the university planned to create a database of students with unique ID, based on the representation received from principals of the autonomous colleges of the university. “We are going to upload all certificates from 2005,” Mr. Duraisamy informed.
There will be no levy of fee from students of government non-autonomous colleges but those in autonomous, aided and self-financing colleges must pay a fee. Each undergraduate student in government autonomous colleges will pay ₹300 per year towards this and the price for M.Phil candidates the fee is ₹1,000 per year.
The president of Association of University Teachers J. Gandhiraj objected to it saying the university should find other ways to fund its programmes but Mr. Duraisamy said the university could not mobilise funds from other sources.