Telangana government doubles fee in engineering colleges

Hyderabad: The decision of the Telangana government to go in for a steep hike in annual fee of engineering colleges has come as a major shock for students and their parents across the State. This gives an excuse for all private institutions to hike fees for the courses they offer as well.

Talking to The Hans India, parents of students who are aspiring to join various engineering courses said the government took a sudden decision to enhance the fee from Rs 18,000 to Rs 35,000 for engineering courses in JNTU and its affiliated institutions at Manthani, Sulthanpur and Jagtial and Osmania Engineering College with immediate effect.

The reason for such a hike, the government said, was to overcome the growing financial constraints. It informed its decision to students who are attending the online web counselling from Monday.

The top 10 colleges have been permitted to collect Rs 1.20 lakh annual fee, but the managements were insisting on payment of Rs 1.45 lakh from this year.

Officials of the State Higher Education, TSCHE (Telangana State Council for Higher Education) and Technical Education said there has been no increase of fee after 2019.

"The increased fee would be utilised to pay salaries and the maintenance of the universities as the funding to the institutions from the government is not enough to meet the financial requirements.

Officials said that the engineering colleges are planning to introduce self-finance courses in all faculties in a phased manner so that the university would mobilise funds on its own in future. Two more self-finance courses which have high demand in the job market would be introduced in the next academic year.

However, this has shocked the parents. "It's horrible to double the fee for the admission into BTech courses. We are suffering due to loss of income and jobs due to corona pandemic. This is nothing but breaking the back of almost all the sections of the people," said V Ratnakar, a retired teacher from Hanumakonda.

Neela Sudharshan of Nalgonda said the government should roll back the fee hike. It seems it was not bothered about the common man who was adversely affected by the pandemic and wanted to benefit the private universities and colleges.

Similarly, GV Naga Malleswara Rao, a teacher from Khammam, said it was an ill-timed decision. Ambala Kiran, ABVP national executive member from Warangal, said, "It's a ploy to distance education from lower income groups."