Engineering college fees may drop:-DC

college fees may drop:

Hyderabad: The fees in many engineering colleges across the state are set to be reduced next year. The task forces — constituted by the state government to inspect colleges — found deficiencies in faculty and infrastructure facilities being offered by the colleges.

This makes them ‘ineligible’ to claim such fees as exist. The task force is expected to recommend reduction of fees in such colleges to the Admissions and Fee Regulatory Committee for 2013-14.

It was found that faculty in the majority of the colleges was “underpaid” and managements were recruiting faculty members in violation of the norms prescribed by the AICTE by hiring fresh B.Tech graduates.

Last year, a majority of the engineering colleges claimed a fee increase from Rs 31,000 to Rs 35,000 per annum (amounting to more than a 15 per cent hike) citing AICTE pay scales for faculty and expenditure on infrastructure facilities.

Out of 680 private engineering colleges in the state, nearly 600 colleges claimed fees of Rs 35,000 while the remaining sought differential fees ranging from Rs 50,000 to Rs 1.05 lakh.

The government was forced to heed to their demand as there was no time to verify those claims. However, the government began inspection of colleges to verify those claims after the admissions process concluded. The inspections are expected to be completed by month-end.


Nearly 70 engineering colleges have violated rules pertaining to management quota admissions this year. The department of higher education has started issuing show-cause notices to managements of these colleges asking them to explain why action should not be taken against them. The department may not ratify those admissions that were made in deviation of the norms. Parents who bought seats for their wards in these colleges by paying huge amounts of money are worried about this development. The AP State Council of Higher Education had constituted inspection teams to verify whether management quota admissions were made according to the rules in GO No.74 issued by the state government last year.

The rules stipulate that colleges should release admissions notification in three leading newspapers and issue applications to all the students who approach them. They should display the list of all the applicants on their website and prepare the merit list from among those applicants, which should be displayed on college notice boards and their websites. However, it was found that several colleges flouted rules and sold seats to students of their choice. In some cases, the number of applications issued by the colleges were equal to the number of seats available in them, proving beyond doubt that the seats were allotted to only those students who agreed to pay the ‘donations’ demanded by the colleges.

“We have issued show-cause notices to about 35 engineering colleges so far. Show-cause notices will be issued to another 15 colleges in a couple of days. Based on their reply, we will decide on the future course of action. The government has all the powers to cancel such admissions which were made in deviation of norms by not following merit and transparency,” said Prof Jayaprakash Rao, chairman, APSCHE. The college managements, of course, are trying to use their political clout to ensure that they are let off this year. While the government-prescribed fees in most of these colleges for management quota is only Rs 35,000, many of the errant colleges collected between Rs 50,000 and Rs 85,000.