On Saturday, the Academic Council of the University of Madras is likely to witness a discussion on affiliation fee for self-financing colleges.
Now the university charges ₹1 lakh in affiliation fee for the first year and ₹25,000 for the second and third years. Thereafter, the colleges are allowed to continue to offer the courses. When a set of students graduate from the course, the college is said to have completed the affiliation process.
A college must pay a one-time fee ₹10 lakh and ₹50,000 per course it offers to get permanent affiliation.
Some government-run universities in the State, such as Madurai Kamaraj, Bharathiar and Bharathidasan, collect lower affiliation fees during the first three years, but colleges must pay a certain amount until they get permanent affiliation.
Affiliation fee is a kind of revenue. In 2018, the then Vice-Chancellor of Madras University, P. Duraisamy, raised the fee from ₹5 lakh to ₹10 lakh to ease the financial difficulties faced by the institution.
The crunch became more pronounced as the university had to discontinue nearly 40 of its distance education courses following the revised norms of the University Grants Commission.
Meanwhile, a recent Local Fund Audit cited the university laws and observed that the university had failed to collect the affiliation fee from colleges since 2017. It advised the university to collect the dues.
Some university officials, however, point out that they would not have made such a mistake as it would mean a loss of several crores in revenue to the institution. The university’s syndicate has been holding discussions, and is yet to make the final decision.
Although the issue is not on the agenda presented to the council members, some college authorities say it may come up for discussion.
“If the university were to collect the pending dues, colleges might protest. At least 40% of the affiliated colleges run the institutions as a service. Some may just hike the student fees to recover the expenses. Ultimately, the students will lose out,” said a council member.
