The fees in Tamil Nadu’s engineering colleges is all set to increase, following the All India Council for Technical Education (AICTE)’s recommendation to the state government to consider the same from the academic year 2020-2021.
As per a report by Ragu Raman in the Times of India, the recommendation comes in order to meet the pay revision mandated to the faculty members by the Pay Commission. The AICTE recently sent a letter to all the state governments, in which it urged them to consider the pay recommendations as per the sixth and seventh Pay Commission and other things while fixing the fee for the next academic year. The letter follows numerous complaints received by the AICTE about engineering colleges not paying their faculty members as per the stipulated norms.
At present, engineering colleges pay around Rs 30000 a month for entry-level assistant professors. The fee for engineering courses in Tamil Nadu was last fixed in 2017-18.
Currently, the fees for engineering and technical courses in Tamil Nadu are fixed by a state fee regulation committee. According to Justice Srikrishna Committee’s recommendations, the maximum fee for engineering courses is anywhere between Rs 1.44 lakh to Rs 1.58 lakh per year. However, there is no minimum fee prescribed by the committee. In Tamil Nadu, the fees for engineering courses under government quota is around Rs 55,000 per year and under management quota, it is around Rs 90,000 per year.
Meanwhile, the colleges have stated that unless the fees for courses are increased, there is no way they can meet the pay stipulated by the Pay Commission. Stating that they would approach the Council with representations to fix a minimum fee as well for engineering and other technical courses, colleges told ToI that there should be a hike of at least 50% in the fees if faculty members are to be paid as per the Pay Commission norms.