Engg. colleges may face heat on proposed fee structure

Updated on: Wednesday, January 11, 2012

The engineering colleges demand for a fee structure based on their facilities may boomerang on majority colleges in light of the Supreme Court's direction to the government that it workout a common fee structure based on the costs involved from the academic year 2012-13.

The directions were based on a SLP filed by the State government that it cannot fix common fee for the last three years and pay the arrears to the college managements as directed by the A.P. High Court. The Supreme Court said that past fee structure need not be reviewed and asked the government to submit fresh proposals for the year 2012-13.

Officials feel college managements will now face the heat as they have to submit audited accounts to the Admission and Fee Regulation Committee (AFRC) that will decide the fee structure. Given the condition in which engineering colleges function in the State, officials say majority of them don't have audited accounts. “Neither they maintain the costs involved nor the the faculty engaged,” a senior official said.

Officials' argument gains credence from the fact that last year only six colleges submitted audited reports to the AFRC out of the 600-odd colleges. This year the number of colleges has crossed over 700 but those submitting accounts is not expected to increase dramatically. Even last year too effectively only one among those six institutions gave every detail of the expenditure and sought fee hike based on those audited results.

Another predicament colleges are likely to face is the audited reports will also reveal what salaries are being paid to professors, assistant professors and non-teaching staff. Majority colleges not only fail to engage faculty as per AICTE guidelines but even those who are recruited don't get salaries as per the norms. Some colleges also use the services of their senior professors at other colleges owned by their group.

Correspondent of a college agreed that they were just waiting for the government to increase the fee rather than seriously seeking a fee structure based on their balance sheet.

However, a few top colleges that maintain accounts as per norms want the government to take this factor into account.

Colleges have been demanding that the average fee be increased to Rs.55,000 per year per student.

Engg. colleges may face heat on proposed fee structure

More Education news