Excess fees: Govt warns engineering colleges again

The State government continues to receive complaints against a few private engineering colleges for collecting excess fees from students who have been alloted seats by the Karnataka Examinations Authority. Some institutes are also said to be demanding tuition fees from SC/ST students.    

Warning the colleges once again, the government has said that collecting excess fees is “totally against the terms of the consensual agreement”.

“All colleges affiliated to the Visvesvaraya Technological University are strictly instructed not to demand fees.

“If any complaint is received in this regard, the government will be constrained to view the act seriously and will be compelled to initiate stringent action against (such) institutions.
(The action) may include appropriate recommendations to the All India Council for Technical Education and other regulatory bodies,” Siddaiah, principal secretary, higher education, said in a circular on Tuesday.

H U Talwar, director of the Department of technical education (DTE), has warned colleges against collecting tuition fees from SC/ST students. The DTE reimburses the fees for SC/ST students whose annual family income is more than Rs two lakh.

The fees for students whose annual family income is less than Rs two lakh is reimbursed by the Department of Social Welfare. He said the fees of students, enrolled between 2010-11 and 2012-13, was being reimbursed.