Hyderabad: Nearly 90 professional colleges offering engineering, management and technical courses face closure this year for failing to submit fee proposals to the government within the deadline. The deadline was extended twice but the colleges did not heed, giving indications that they wanted to shut the shop. The government has decided to fix “zero fees” for colleges that fail to submit their fee proposals.
The latest deadline was January 31. Out of 1,235 AICTE approved colleges in Telangana, 1,148 colleges have submitted fee proposals. These colleges offer B.Tech, B.Pharmacy, MBA, MCA, M.Tech and M.Pharmacy courses. The government revises fees for these colleges once in three years. After the last revision in 2013, the fee revision is due for this year. All colleges need to submit their audited financial statements on income and expenditure to the Admissions and Fee Regulatory Committee and seek fee revisions accordingly.
The 11-member AFRC is headed by retired High Court judge Justice P. Swaroop Reddy, who has said that fees will be prescribed for only those colleges that submit proposals while “zero fees” will be prescribed for those that fail to do so. Officials of TS Council for Higher Education said colleges not submitting fees proposals would mean that either the managements wanted to close the colleges or offer education for free.
“It’s up to the managements to communicate to us whether they want to close the colleges or offer education for free. Based on their communication, we will take a final call on such colleges,” said Mr T. Papi Reddy, chairman, TSCHE. The revised fees will be applicable for a period of three years, till the 2018-19 academic year. Official sources said around 60 out of these 90 colleges have already written to AICTE and JNTU-Hyderabad, seeking closure due to poor intake and their applications are pending. For this reason, the managements might have avoided submission of fresh fee proposals.
