Panel wants colleges to collect fee in cheques

In the days to come, professional colleges across the state could be asked to collect fees only through cheque and not cash.

According to official sources, the Admission Overseeing Committee is all set to seek that the state government makes this mandatory.

Colleges that charge fees above Rs 20,000 will be made to to collect fee by means of cheque only.

Justice B Manohar, chairman, Admission Overseeing Committee, Karnataka Examinations Authority (KEA) said that provisions of the Income Tax Act made them lay down such a mandate. “Section 269 (SS) of the Income Tax Act’s chapter 20B has a provision where colleges can be asked to collect fee only by means of cheque. The committee is contemplating on discussing this with the government in the upcoming meeting and have an amendment introduced in the Karnataka Professional Educational Institutions Act in this regard,” he said.

Complaint to PMO

This comes in the wake of an individual complaint that the committee had received, forwarded by the Prime Minister’s Office (PMO) recently. A copy of the complaint is available with DH.

An anonymous complaint was sent to the PMO about a private engineering college in Mangaluru that had insisted the parents to pay a part of the fee in cash only. The same was referred to the Admissions Overseeing Committee.

The committee had looked into the complaint and a show-cause notice was issued to the college, seeking an explanation within 10 days. “The college wrote back to us. We did not find any concrete evidence against the college. Also, we could not reach out to the complainant as it was an anonymous letter. We had to stall it there after seeking an explanation from the college,” said Justice Manohar.

The college had in this case responded to the committee stating that 80% of their seats were filled through KEA. “Only for the remaining nearly 20% of students who take admission under the management and COMED-K quota, the admission process is completed at the college counter. Majority of these students pay their fee through cheque, bank draft or by digital way. Sometimes, such students who are from distant places having not brought sufficient amount, perhaps drawn money from the ATMs available at the campus and paid the same to the college office as it was deemed to be convenient for them. Henceforth, we will avoid such practises.” the college responded.