The State government and the Telangana Admission and Fee Regulation Committee’s (TAFRC) strategic silence gave the engineering colleges enough space to move the court seeking fee hike for this year thus hitting the pockets of parents, who are already burdened by the rising prices and the impact of COVID on their earnings, allege several parents.
The TAFRC initially agreed to hike the fee after scrutinising the income and expenditure statements of the colleges that sought fee hike from this year. However, under pressure from parents and other organisations, the committee decided to postpone the proposals for hike for next year as the entire exercise was not completed.
In fact, sources say, the TAFRC sent the recommendations, to spare the students from hike, to the government that has to issue the orders separately for each college mentioning the enhanced fee for the block period of 2022-23 to 2024-25. This entire exercise was supposed to be conducted before the admission counselling process begins. However, the government went ahead with counselling without any clarity on the fee structure and also allotted the seats.
In the meantime, 79 engineering colleges moved the High Court and sought directions for a fee hike and the court in its interim order allowed the colleges to collect the enhanced fee but with the condition that the differential amount, if any, would have to be returned once the TAFRC recommendations are approved.
The TAFRC, so far, has not given any clarity on whether the exercise has been completed or if it still wants some time to fix the final fee after taking into consideration several other aspects. Parents and students allege that the government too is silent to escape criticism from the parents. “How can the counselling be conducted giving scope for colleges to take the legal route to raise the fee when the TAFRC is yet to submit its report,” student unions, that held demonstrations at the TSCHE office, asked.
With the first phase of seats now allotted, students have to pay the fee before September 13 or else, they would lose their seat. There is still confusion whether the fee is hiked officially or not is the question being asked by many parents.
As the confusion continues to haunt parents, colleges have increased the fee with 36 colleges collecting fee of more than ₹1 lakh. Sought-after colleges like the CBIT are charging ₹1.73 lakh fee per annum while CVR, Vasavi, BVRIT, Srineenidhi and VNR Vignan Jyothi figure in the more than ₹1.5 lakh bracket.
