HYDERABAD: With the Telangana High Court permitting 14 private engineering colleges to accept the hiked fee until the regulatory committee decides on the matter, students and student organisations said the increased fee would make it difficult for them.
The High Court had heard petitions filed by 14 engineering colleges to direct the Eamcet convener, the Telangana Admissions and Fee Regulatory Committee (TAFRC) and others to allow them to collect the hiked fee. The court approved their request on the condition that if the collected fee was higher than the fee notified by TAFRC at a later stage, the colleges should refund the excess fee.
Venkat Balmoor, president of National Students Union of India’s (NSUI) Telangana unit, said, “It has never happened that after collecting the fee, college managements have returned excess amounts to the students. Students will not be in a position to pressure the institute for the money as they hold the original certificates.”
Telangana Parents’ Association president Asif Sohail said the private colleges had been hiking the fee for many years, and the fee committee was taking a long time to come up with regulations.
“The education department is misleading the courts by not filing proper counters to the cases filed by colleges. The Chief Minister said he wants to replicate Delhi’s model of schools but how is that possible without regulating the fees,” said Sohail.
The Students Federation of India’s (SFI) said it collected the opinions of students and parents regarding the fee hike, and most were against it as well as the option given to 14 colleges to collect the hiked fees.
SFI Telangana secretary T. Nagaraju said most students and parents, especially those with a rural background, felt the fee was too high. “The fee regulation committee is not acting and so, every year, it is being increased by as much as 10-40 per cent. The parents have approached the government about the issue but no action has been taken,” Nagaraju said.
