AP: Engineering colleges rake in Rs 14 crore?

HYDERABAD:  Taking advantage of an ambiguity in a GO on registration fee to be collected from students for admission to management quota seats, private engineering colleges have reportedly collected around `14 crore.There are about 70,002 seats in the management quota (B category) for which counselling is yet to begin. Before commencement of counselling, students have to register themselves in colleges they are interested to take admission. The students paid fees ranging from Rs 1,000 to Rs 3,000, with some students registering with more than one college. Assuming the average cost of registration per student is Rs 2,000, the amount the colleges collected might go up to a whopping Rs 14 crore. Y Seetaram Reddy, administrative officer of Chaitanya Bharathi Institute of Technology said the GO 74 does not prescribe any specific registration fees though it had laid down the registration fee as Rs 600 for seats in category A. "This is why CBIT and others colleges have collected registration fees. The CBIT charged Rs 1,000 as registration fee from each student and 2,000 students have registered so far," he said.Meanwhile, the Hyderabad District Consumer Information Centre has decided to serve notices on four engineering colleges for fleecing students seeking admission into B category seats.