A federation of self-financed technical institutes has demanded that they should be exempted from the liability of paying service tax under the proposed Goods and Services Tax (GST) regime.

Implementation of the service tax provision for self-financing educational institutions will lead to an increase in tuition fee for the students, the federation’s office bearers and members said at a press conference.

They urged the central government to accept their demand and “save the small dying self financing technical institutions of India.” “It’s a very important issue. We will soon meet Finance Minister Arun Jaitley to draw his attention towards it. Self-financed technical institutions should be exempted from paying service tax liability in the best interest of students,” chief patron of the All India Federation of Self Financing Technical Institutions  R S Munirathinam said.

The federation held its second executive committee meeting here to discuss the issue along with other “problems” that the member institutes are facing.

Representatives from self-financed technical institutes operating in different states, including Karnataka, Andhra Pradesh, Telangana, Tamil Nadu, Maharashtra and Delhi, attended the meeting.