Tuition fee waiver to cover MBA, MCA

Meritorious students whose annual family income does not exceed Rs 6 lakh will be eligible for tuition fee waiver even in post graduate programmes in management and computer application.

The All India Council for Technical Education (AICTE) has decided to expand its tuition fee waiver scheme to cover poor PG students of MBA, MCA, PGDM and PGDCA.

The AICTE executive committee cleared the proposal at its meeting recently.

The scheme, launched during the previous United Progressive Alliance (UPA) regime in 2011, will now cover all technical and professional institutes under the AICTE.

“The Executive Committee approved extension of the tuition fee waiver scheme to MBA, MCA, PGDM, PGDCA courses as there is no provision for scholarship or stipend,” AICTE member secretary A P Mittal said.

The scheme was revised on demand from students and parents.

“The Council was receiving requests from various quarters, including parents, students and
technical institutions, to extend the benefit of the scheme to post graduate courses such as MBA and MCA,” Mittal said.

Until now, the scheme provided for tuition fee waiver of students of bachelor, diploma and post diploma programmes of technical and professional institutes.

According to AICTE rules, it is mandatory for all higher education institutions offering technical and professional programmes to reserve 5% of their total approved intake per course for admission of poor students.

“The waiver is limited to the tuition fee as approved by the State-level fee committee for self-financing institutions, government and aided institutions. All other fees except tuition fee shall be paid by the beneficiary,” the scheme stipulates.

The 5% seats out of the total approved intake to be earmarked for admitting students under the scheme are supernumerary in nature.

“These supernumerary seats shall be available only to such course/courses in an institution, where a minimum of 30% of approved intake are filled up. In the event of non-availability of students in this category, the same shall not be given to any other category of applicants,” the scheme guidelines stipulate.

The State admission authority “shall” invite applications under this category of seats and prepare a separate merit list of the students for admission, the scheme states.