Despite HC stay, parents accuse south Delhi school of hiking fee

A group of around 100 parents Monday protested outside the St George School in Alaknanda alleging “arbitrary” fee hike.

Even as the Delhi high court on Monday extended till April 30 the stay on an earlier order that allowed private schools built on public land to raise fee, parents continued to complain that several schools were demanding hiked fee and “arrears”.

Schools have been demanding an increase in fee to pay the higher salaries under the Seventh Pay Commission recommendations.(HT File / Photo used for representational purpose only)

Schools have been demanding an increase in fee to pay the higher salaries under the Seventh Pay Commission recommendations.

A group of around 100 parents Monday protested outside the St George School in Alaknanda alleging “arbitrary” fee hike. “We were paying around ₹60, 000 annually and now the school has revised it to ₹1.2 lakh. We don’t have a problem if it was a marginal increase, but they have almost doubled it,” one of the parents said.

Parents said they went to meet the school administration on Saturday and submitted a written request for rolling back the fee. “The letter was signed by around 500 parents. But the school management declined to meet us. Some official said that since the school is a minority institution, it can hike fees,” a parent said.

When contacted on the school’s phone number( given on its website), the person who answered declined to comment. The school administration also did not respond to HT’s e-mails.

The school had on April 3 issued a circular to parents saying, “The school has not hiked fees for the last three years. At the same time, the school has heavily invested in the infrastructure development… hence, in compliance with the recent high court decision the school management committee has decided to ... the monthly tuition fee to ₹4,968.”

Binay Bhushan, director of the Delhi government’s Directorate of Education (DoE), said the department had on Monday said it had asked the school to roll back the fee within two days. “All schools, minority and non-minority, on government’s land have to go through a financial auditing before revising fee,” he said.

Several parents also filed a complaint at the CR Park police station. DCP (South) Vijay Kumar confirmed complaints from parents and the school.