Bangalore: Engineering Seats May Cost More, Talks on Over Medical Seats
From Our Special Correspondent
Daijiworld Media Network - Bangalore
Bangalore, Apr 5: Students aspiring to join professional courses in Karnataka may have to be prepared to pay higher fees from the ensuing academic year 2011-12.
An indication to this effect was given by Karnataka’s Higher Education Minister Dr V S Acharya.
Dr Acharya said the admission fee of engineering courses is likely to be increased from the coming academic year (2011-12) following steep in salaries of the teaching staff in private engineering colleges.
Talking to the media representatives after launching the emblem of the Karnataka Sanskrit University here, the minister said All India Council for Technical Education (AICTE) has revised the pay-scale of teachers based on the 6th pay commission recommendations.
Private college managements have been insisting for hike in fee as they had not increased for the last five years, he claimed.
At the same time, he said the Government was making every effort to convince the private managements of engineering, medical and dental colleges in the State against going in for a steep hike.
A meeting with the Consortium of Medical, Engineering and Dental-Karnataka (COMED-K) would be convened in a couple of days and appeal would be made to private college managements not to hike fee in the interest of students.
The Government would try its best to ensure that the hike in admission fees for engineering courses would kept as low as possible as there was some justification in the demand for the increase, he said efforts would be made to persuade the private managements not to raise the fees for medical colleges.
Nearly 72,000 engineering seats are available in 184 engineering colleges in the State, of which nearly 8,000 seats remained vacant in the last academic year.
As per the AICTE proposal, each college has to set aside 5 % of the total seats free for meritorious students belonging to poor families whose annual income is less than Rs 1 lakh.
There was no confusion or deadlock with regard to fee structure. “I hope that private colleges will not hike fee in the interest of students’ education,” he said.
Dr Acharya said the emblem of the Sanskrit University contained Kannada, Devanagiri and English scripts. The emblem art work was done by artiste Muralidhara V Rathod.
The government has identified 130 acres for the university campus at Surappanahalli in Magadi Taluk and the next Cabinet meeting would take a final decision on the issue.
The department has proposed to set up a Directorate for Sanskrit, he said.
Nearly 16,000 students have been studying Sanskrit in various schools and colleges in the State. As many as 4,000 Scheduled Caste and Scheduled Tribe categories students have been enrolled for the course in the State, he added.