Supreme Court puts more fee burden on state

HYDERABAD: The recent Supreme Court order allowing fee hike by engineering colleges will lead to additional burden on the state government because it would have to shell out more in the form of fee reimbursement from 2012-13 academic year. Already, the government is paying Rs 3,500 crore to the colleges as tuition fee reimbursement for students from economically backward and other disadvantaged sections.Adding to the woes of the government, the managements of private engineering colleges are insisting on a common fee structure after scrapping management quota. This means that all the seats would be filled by the Eamcet convenor and there will be more students claiming fee reimbursement.For the current (2011-12) academic year, the state government has to pay `3,500 crore towards fee reimbursement and post-metric scholarships. As of now, it paid `1,900 crore in two phases and it is yet to release the remaining amount.With the Supreme Court verdict, the tuition fee may go up by 7 percent to 42 percent.Presently, the admission and fee regulatory committee (AFRC) has justified fixing `31,000 as convenor quota fee as the colleges are permitted to collect `95,000 for the 30 percent seats under the management quota. If the management quota seats are converted into convenor quota seats, the total fee amount that managements get will be less than what they would have got if management quota existed. So, there might be pressure from the managements to allow them to hike convenor quota fee accordingly. Since its inception in 2008-09, the fee reimbursement scheme proved to be a major burden for the state government.As there were arrears in 2008-09, 2009-10, the state released `5,250 crore during the 2010-11 academic year.Sources said, the state government on its own would not give nod for common fee structure by scraping the management quota, but it would have no alternative if the Supreme Court favours it. As it is, about 27 lakh students are benefiting from fee reimbursement and post-metric scholarships in the state. Sources said the government was contemplating to reduce its burden by paying only `20,000 to each student per year, irrespective of the college tuition fee for BCs and EBCs. The government wants to allow full fee reimbursement to SC, ST and PHC students.