Fee bill process not transparent, says Atishi in letter to Delhi CM

AAP leader Atishi criticized the non-transparent approval of the Delhi School Fee Regulation Bill, urging immediate relief for parents facing fee hikes.

New Delhi

A law for fixing fee hikes was a longstanding demand. (Representative photo/HT Archive)

Aam Aadmi Party (AAP) leader Atishi on Wednesday, in a letter to chief minister Rekha Gupta, alleged that the process behind approving the Delhi School Education (Transparency in Fixation and Regulation of Fees) Bill, 2025, was non-transparent.

Atishi demanded immediate relief for parents facing “arbitrary fee hikes” in 2025-26. “If BJP Govt truly has honest intentions behind Fee Regulation Bill, it must order private schools to roll back excessive & arbitrary fee hikes immediately,” she said in the letter, a copy of which was accessed by HT.

In response, spokesperson for the Delhi unit of the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) Praveen Shankar Kapoor dismissed Atishi’s allegations as “political frustrations”. “For 10 years, Atishi spoke a lot on education system reforms but never acted to regulate fee structure of Delhi’s private school while Rekha Gupta-led BJP government has brought a bill in less then three months to regulate fee structures,” he said.

The Delhi Cabinet on Tuesday approved the draft of the bill, a legislation CM Gupta termed a “bold and historic” attempt to rein in arbitrary fee hikes by private schools.

The AAP leader demanded the issuance of an order halting all fee hikes and new charges introduced by private schools for the current academic year. “Any school that has already collected increased fees should be directed to refund excess amount immediately... Draft Bill must be placed in public domain for feedback from all stakeholders & only then be tabled in Delhi Assembly,” Atishi said.

“The Delhi government has neither shared any details of any consultative process through which the aforesaid bill was drafted, nor the draft bill has been shared with the public so far. Till now, we only know what is being reported in the media, we have no authentic document to refer and comment upon,” Atishi said.