Soon, fixing of the fees for the deemed universities might be done by UGC
Posted on: 29/Nov/2019 10:10:10 AM
Collecting exorbitant amount as fees from the students would soon become a thing of past for the deemed universities.
It is now said that UGC or University Grants Commission would set up a 5 member committee to monitor the fee structure of 126 deemed universities including 29 from TN. There is no mechanism to regulate fees in the private institutions deemed to be universities that comes under the purview of the central government.
On Wednesday, draft regulations were released by the UGC and according to the regulations, only the fees approved and communicated by the fee committee could be charged by the institutions from the students. The institution could collect no other fees directly or indirectly under any other account or guise other than the above said one.
It must be noted that in case of any violation of the above-mentioned rule the committee would impose fine up to Rs 10 lakhs. Refunding excess fee amount would be done. Point to be noted is deemed universities could appeal against the fee committee orders.
It is brought out that the deemed universities must submit a proposed fee structure for various professional courses at least 6 months before the date of advertisements for admissions. There must be authenticated data accompanying each proposal. The institution proposes the fees structure based on this only. For the next 3 years, the fee approved by the fee committee would be valid and subsequent changes would be applicable for new admissions only.
Various parameters on which the fees would be collected are the average per-seat cost of imparting education, cost of course-wise expenses for the students, need for research, extent or magnitude of aid received by the institutions, social status and educational needs of the people belonging to the area.
It is worth mentioning that the committee would have former vice-chancellor or head of national regulatory authority as chairman, and an eminent educationist, a nominee of regulatory authority financial expert as members.
According to Mr Ishari Ganesh, chancellor, Vels Institute of Science Technology and advanced studies, deemed universities are autonomous institutions that promote research and innovations using their autonomous status and these could not be brought under the regulations.
