JOIN US'Premium' parking space at City colleges
The colleges insist that they cannot afford to provide parking facility to students free of cost. While the parking fee cuts a hole in students’ pocket in some colleges, some do not provide such facility. And some institutions collect fee only for cars. And of course, in few cases the parking fee has gone up with in tune with tuition fee.
An inquiry by Deccan Herald has thrown up some startling facts. At many colleges, students have to fork out anywhere between Rs 500 and 1,000 per year for parking their bikes and the sum ranges between Rs 1,800 and Rs 5,000 per annum for four-wheelers. Needless to say these payments are in addition to the tuition fees.
St Joseph's College of Commerce charges Rs 5,000 for the parking cars. Christ University too collects an identical sum. New Horizon College of Engineering charges Rs 4,000 per year.
PES Institute of Technology collects Rs 1,800 from students for car parking and Rs 600 for two-wheelers. At Jyoti Nivas College space for car parking comes at Rs 2,000 whereas it is Rs 500 for two-wheelers.
Open ground
Many others, however, claim that despite paying the exorbitant fee, colleges do not offer good parking facilities. "The space for parking is just an open ground. There's no proper shelter for our vehicles," a student of the New Horizon College of Engineering said. Irked by the increase in parking fee, students had staged a protest last year.
Multi-layered parking
The college reduced the fee for two wheelers but didn't cut down that for four wheelers. PESIT, however, has made elaborate parking arrangements. It has provided for a multi-layered parking facility with a concrete roof.
A PESIT official said norms of the All India Council for Technical Education (AICTE) does not require colleges to provide parking space for students.
Dr K Rajanikanth, Principal, MSRIT, however, differs. The college does not charge even a penny for parking.
"We consider it one among the campus facilities like drinking water, etc," he said. The BMS College of Engineering too doesn't charge students for parking.
Exponential growth
Other colleges say they had to raise the parking fee as the number of vehicles brought by students grown exponentially grown over the years causing pressure on space. St Joseph's College principal Daniel Fernandes said the location of the college prompted them to introduce a parking fee.
“People coming to the neighbouring shopping malls park vehicles on our campus. Hence we introduced a parking fee for others and stickers for our students," he said.
At Mount Carmel College, students are forced to park their vehicles outside the campus due to limited parking space.
