Government looks into excess fee claims

CHENNAI: The government on Tuesday met with officials over allegations that some private engineering colleges were collecting excessive fees. Earlier, Higher Education Minister P Palaniappan expressed concern over student protests at two colleges over the issue. His comments to Express came on the sidelines of his visit to the engineering counselling centre at Anna University here on Tuesday. Over the last couple of weeks, students of two self financing colleges went on a rampage protesting what they claimed was an arbitrary fee. “We are being charged extra amounts under new names like administration fee etc. Moreover, they charge us exorbitantly for transport even for short distances. When we say we don’t need transport, they refuse to let us travel to college on our own, saying it is compulsory. Most of us are from middle class backgrounds and depend on loans,” a student told Express.But, officials criticised the violent method of the students to resolve issues. Experts said they cannot intervene until a plaint is filed by a student or parent. “We hear about this issue only in the media. So far not a single complaint has come to us,” said Anna University V-C Mannar Jawahar, .But students have a different reason for not complaining. “Filing a complaint could put us in trouble as they might corner us and spoil our studies later. We wanted to make ourselves heard, which is why we decided to protest,” said a student of a college in Mangadu.Managements say that the hike was essential owing to rising costs and to improve infrastructure. But there has not been any revision in engineering fees in the last five years. “Even a marginal hike will evoke strong protests. Hence, there has been no move in the last few years to revise fees,” a senior higher education department official said. The fee for B.E / B.Tech / B.Arch under government quota was left unchanged for 2011-2012 at `32,500 for non-accredited courses and `40,000 for accredited ones by the fee fixation panel for self-financing professional colleges headed by Justice N V Balasubramanian. The fee for management quota seats continued to be `62,500 as in the previous year.