After a gap of 18 months, the Department of Higher Education, on Wednesday finally appointed a chairman for the fee regulatory committee. Former High Court judge and former Upalokayukta Subhash B. Adi has been named chairman for a tenure of one year or until further orders.
The role of the committee, which comprises the chairman, is to prescribe the fee structure after looking at expenditure incurred by colleges with the aim of ensuring that students are not burdened by huge hikes. It will decide if a hike is deemed necessary and accordingly, fix a reasonable percentage or cap for college managements.
In the lurch
The absence of a committee for more than a year had left students, who were hoping to enrol in professional colleges, in the lurch. Dinesh N., an MBBS seat aspirant for this year, said: “The committee is especially important this year as students from middle-class families have been affected by the economic slowdown on account of COVID-19. We won’t be able to afford education if colleges hike tuition fees. We hope the committee will keep our concerns in mind.”
For the 2019-20 academic year, there was no fee regulatory committee and the State governments as well as associations of different professional colleges got into a consensual agreement regarding fee structures.
In the 2018-19 academic year, the intervention of this committee had ensured that the engineering fee hike was capped at 8%. Though the State government and college managements had decided on a 10% hike, they had to roll it back after the committee objected.
