JOIN USAt least five private colleges have been individually warned of strict action if they collect excess fees from students who seek admission to undergraduate engineering courses.
AMC College of Engineering, New Horizon College of Engineering, Sri Krishna Institute of Technology, Rajarajeshwari College of Engineering (all in Bangalore), and KLES’ College of Engineering, Belgaum, were warned by the State Government of strict action if they charged students more than the fees fixed in the consensual agreement, well-placed sources said.
Meanwhile, cracks seem to have appeared in the Karnataka Unaided Private Engineering Colleges’ Association (KUPECA) which has termed “unfair” the collection of exorbitant fees by one of its member colleges based in Bangalore.
According to KUPECA secretary M K Panduranga Setty, the said college was not responding to questions on the excess fee. The college is reportedly charging as much as Rs 65,000 more than the notified fee. What’s more, the excess fee varies between different branches of engineering.
Setty said he tried to contact the college management but there was no response. “We’ll deal with it. They can charge only a nominal sum more than the notified fee, that too if students are ready to pay. They shouldn’t charge exorbitantly,” Setty told Deccan Herald.The KUPECA official said the extra fee was “absolutely optional”. “But most students won’t mind paying it, as it is useful to them,” he maintained.
Siddaiah, Principal Secretary, Higher Education, denied that some students did not report to colleges as they could not afford the extra fee. An appropriate decision would be taken if there were complaints, he asserted.
The issue appears to have been solved in the medical stream. According to P Venkataramaiah, the one-man monitoring committee on consensual agreement for medical and dental courses, only two colleges — Jawaharlal Nehru Medical College, Belgaum (a deemed university) and Basaveshwara Medical College and Hospital, Chitradurga — demanded extra fee. JNMC had demanded Rs 4.5 lakh more. “These are essentially isolated cases. The colleges have agreed not to charge extra,” Venkataramaiah said.
19,859 students report to colleges
Of 21,025 students who collected admission orders from the Karnataka Examinations Authority (KEA), as many as 19,859 confirmed by Tuesday that they had reported to colleges. In all, 1,332 students in medical, 131 in dental, 146 in Indian System of Medicine and Homoeopathy (ISM&H), 19,285 in engineering, and 131 in architecture have collected admission orders. Students who are yet to confirm whether they have reported to colleges can do so by 5 pm, Wednesday.