The unending wait continues for engineering aspirants in the state even after the state government fixed the common fees at Rs 35,000 on Sunday. With the fee row far from being resolved, there is no clarity on when the Eamcet engineering counselling will commence. Although officials earlier claimed that the counselling schedule will be issued by Tuesday, chances look grim with managements still pitching for a bigger fee hike.
Last year, the engineering seat allotments were made on August 15 after conducting web-based counselling from the last week of July and classes for first-year students had commenced from August 18. This year, however, the government has failed to begin with counselling, even though the Eamcet was held in May. Officials, on the other hand, claim that they will be in a position to announce the schedule after August 20 if there is clarity on the fee structure within a week.
“We are under tremendous pressure to begin engineering counselling at the earliest, but we cannot do so under the present circumstances. The government has fixed common fees at `35,000. But colleges have to submit affidavits expressing their approval for the same to the AFRC. The AFRC then recommends fixation of fee to the government. Only after that can we begin counselling as students need to know the amount of fees they have to pay after they are allotted seats. In the absence of a fee structure, if counselling is done and seats allotted, it may invite further proble-ms,” said Prof. Jayaprakash Rao, chairman, APSCHE.
Ironically, the government is clueless on what it would do if colleges do not file affidavits or in such cases, what the fees in those colleges would be. Some officials are of the opinion that for those colleges, which refuse to accept `35,000 as common fees and submit affidavits, the government must fix a minimum fee of `50,200, based on the average of existing fee for merit and convener quota seats. The government has to give “conditional allotment of seats” to students for a fee of `50,000 stating that it is subject to revision, based on the inspections carried out by task forces to verify the academic standards, faculty and infrastructure in those colleges.
Whatever be the final outcome, students and parents are anxious due to the inordinate delay in engineering counselling. They say that that students have been sitting at home for the last three months, ever since the Eamcet was held in May. They add that a significant number of students who qualified in the Eamcet have already migrated to other states for engineering admissions, due to lack of clarity on admissions schedule here.