Thiruvananthapuram: The Kerala Self Financing Engineering College Management Association (KSFECMA) and the state government decided to collect the same fees as last year. This was decided at the meeting with KSFECMA and the state government on Thursday. The government wanted a reduction in fee from last year for BTech courses on Wednesday. Though some of the engineering college management agreed for a reduction on their own, the association took a stand that they were not ready to include this in the agreement.
However, the government wanted the managements to include the clause for reduction of fees in the agreement itself. Later, the government asked the managements to discuss the issue once more and come for another round of discussions on Thursday. On Thursday, the managements informed the government that they were not ready for including this in the agreement. Following this it was decided to enter into an agreement with last year’s fee. KSFECMA president Jory Mathai told Deccan Chronicle that the agreement between the management and government would be signed on Friday. The agreement has already been drafted. Only the formal signing remains to be completed, Mr Mathai said.
Last year, it was unified fee for all government quota seats in 57 engineering colleges in the state. Moreover, the fee was reduced from Rs 75,000 to Rs 50,000 for all the seats in these 57 colleges. However, the remaining 41 colleges would have a two-tier fee structure. In these colleges, the fee would be Rs 50,000 for lower income group candidates and Rs 50,000 and a special fee of Rs 25,000 for other students. As per the agreement 50 per cent seats will be government quota, 35 per cent seats management quota and 15 per cent NRI quota. The fee for NRI quota seats was fixed at Rs 95,000.
