JOIN USThe association of private engineering colleges in the state will meet Chief Minister H D Kumaraswamy on Wednesday with regard to the issue of fixing fees.
The association is irked with the fee fixation committee as it capped the annual fee hike for engineering colleges at a maximum of 8% for this year.
According to sources in the Karnataka Examinations Authority, most engineering colleges had sought an average fee hike of about 30%, citing a need to better their infrastructure and provide quality education.
Representatives of private engineering and architecture colleges will hold discussions with Kumaraswamy in this regard.
Private colleges have also raised concerns over the communication pertaining to fee fixation. The principal of one of the private professional colleges said proper procedure was not followed by the committee.
“Till the previous year, proposals on the fee hike recommendation were sent to the government in closed envelopes by the committee. We were intimated only after the state approved it. This year, we have received individual mails from the committee directly,”he said .
The committee has recommended that non-resident Indian (NRI) students be charged multiple times the fee local students pay. For private medical and dental seats, the recommendation was as high as 10 times that of the local students’ fee.
For engineering seats, NRI students will have to pay four times the fee fixed for local students. The difference amount in fee hence collected must be utilised for providing education at a subsidised cost for SC, ST and backward class students, the committee has said.