From Our Special Correspondent
Daijiworld Media Network
Bengaluru, Sep 29: All the fees for Engineering Colleges in the State shall have to be paid only in the State Government run Karnataka Examination Authority (KEA) and other fees that can be levied by private Engineering Colleges have been fixed at a maximum of Rs 20,000 this year.
Announcing the decisions at a news conference, Higher Education Minister Dr C N Ashwath Narayan on Wednesday that the annual fees in all private Engineering Colleges in the State will be retained at the levels fixed last year in view of the present Covid pandemic situation.
This decision on the fees in the State’s Engineering Colleges for this year was taken at a meeting between the representatives of the Karnataka Unaided Private Engineering Colleges Association (KUPECA) and Karnataka Religious and Linguistic Minorities Private Colleges Association (KRLMPCA) held in Vikas Soudha under the chairmanship of the minister.
Dr Narayan said the two slabs for fees to students securing admission private Engineering Colleges under the Government Quota shall remain at Rs 65,340 and Rs 58,806 as fixed last year.
At the same time, the minister said a cap on ‘other fees’ charged by the managements of the private Engineering Colleges has been fixed at Rs 20,000 in order to prevent some colleges charging exorbitant fees up to Rs 70,000 under the guise of ‘’other fees.’’
The minister declared that the managements of KUPECA and KRLMPCA have agreed to the decision on the fees.
Dr Narayan made it clear that all the admission fees, other fees, skills fees etc. shall have to be paid only in the KEA and not directly in the respective colleges. This will eliminate the confusion in the fees, he said.
The minister said all the colleges shall have to furnish information before charging any type of tuition fees and other fees explaining the reasons for levying the fees to the KEA, Technical Education Department and to the Visvesvaraya Technical University (VTU) and the fee details must be published in the websites. No college is allowed to collect the fees directly and amount must be remitted only in the KEA.
A team from VTU will visit and inspect each college before allowing them to charge any kind of tution fees, skills fees etc.
The minister explained that the managements of the private engineering colleges had asked the government to enhance the engineering course fees by 30% this year. The VTU pro-chancellor Karisiddappa-led committee had recommended that the colleges be permitted to enhance the course fees by 15% to 20%. However, in view of the present Covid pandemic situation and difficulties faced by the people, the private engineering college managements were persuaded to agree for not increasing the fees for this year.
Education experts Manjunath Bhandrai, Chandrashekar Raju, Ramesh Raju, Higher Education Department Additional Chief Secretary Kumar Nayak, Collegiate Education Department Commissioner P Pradeep and others were present at the meeting.