Tamil Nadu cracks whip on 25 BE colleges
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Higher education minister P. Palaniappan on Tuesday announced in Assembly that the state government had initiated action against 25 private engineering colleges, as they demanded fees more than the fee fixed by the committee.
Replying to a question after moving the demand for grants for the department in the Assembly, Mr Palaniappan said the state government constituted a committee under the Tamil Nadu educational institutions (prohibition of collection of capitation fees) Act, 1992, to enquire into complaints of collection of capitation and excess tuition fees.
The committee on fixation of fees conducted enquiry in 74 private engineering colleges based on complaints.
The minister said the department had initiated action against 25 colleges and this instilled confidence among students, parents and the public.
Anna University sources said the enquiry committee inspected 50 colleges and submitted its report to the state government based on which showcause notices were issued to colleges.
As there were no records for capitation fee in most of the colleges, the committee enquired about charges of excess tuition fee.
After the committee’s intervention, colleges refunded `20,000, which they had collected from first generation students.
The government has initiated action against 25 private engineering colleges up to March this year.“The work relating to fixation of fees for professional courses like B.E., B.Tech and post graduate courses like MBA, MCA by committee constituted under the chairmanship of retired justice N.V. Balasubramanian is under speedy progress,” the minister informed.
Committee to soon fix fee for B.Ed colleges
With private education colleges imparting B.Ed and M.Ed programmes collecting fees ranging from Rs 45,000 to Rs 75,000, the state government has announced that the fee fixation committee headed by Justice N.V. Balasubramanian would fix fee for B.Ed college also. Private education colleges would be directed to collect fees to be fixed by the committee.
“There are 660 education colleges of which 639 are private owned in the state. A student joining government run college pays a mere Rs 1,700 and government aided colleges charge fees ranging from Rs 1,700 to Rs 22,000 whereas a private college demands Rs 45,000 to Rs 75,000 as fees”, higher education minister P. Palaniappan said in his reply on demands for grants on Tuesday.
Mr Palaniappan pointed out that for a long time private education colleges had no proper fees structure, which made students shell out a lot of money as fees.
“Keeping students’ welfare in mind, last year chief minister J. Jayalalithaa had announced that on the lines of fee fixation committee for private professional colleges the committee headed by retired Justice N.V. Balasubramanian was asked to fix fees for education colleges too”, he said.
From this academic year, colleges would be asked to collect fees to be fixed by the fee fixation committee.
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