Charging more than the govt approved fee to be offence

Fee charges more than what the government or its authorized body approves would be an offence under the proposed law to check unfair practices in professional higher education institutions with a penalty of fine upto Rs one crore, if the cabinet on Wednesday approves HRD ministry's proposal. Chetan Chauhan reports.

Updated on: Nov 16, 2011, 24:21:42 IST

Hindustan Times | By Chetan Chauhan, New Delhi

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Fee charges more than what the government or its authorized body approves would be an offence under the proposed law to check unfair practices in professional higher education institutions with a penalty of fine upto Rs one crore, if the cabinet on Wednesday approves HRD ministry's proposal.

The ministry has agreed with several key recommendations of the Parliamentary Standing committee on Prohibition of Unfair Practices in Technical Educational Institutions, Medical Institutions Bill and has decided to re-define the term "capitation fee" to make it more specific to check the illegal practice.

The committee advised that 10% excess of the tuition fee should be termed as a capitation fee. The ministry has gone a step ahead and has decided that a penny charged more than the fee decided by a government's fee fixation committee or any other authorized body for technical education and medical institutions would be capitation fee.

In most of the state, a committee under the Technical Education department fixed the fee structure in consultation with different types of professional institutions. With this, these committees would get a statutory backing.

The ministry has also accepted the committee's recommendation earlier this year that fine for charging capitation fee should be increased from up to Rs 50 lakh to Rs one crore and there should be a minimum penalty for each offence.

Another new addition in the reworked bill for Cabinet consideration is that failure to meet any promise made in the prospectus would also be an offence. And, there would be a grievance redressal mechanism in each institution for students before they approach the state level educational tribunals to be set up once the proposed law is enacted.

"We have accepted over 80% of the recommendations made by the Parliamentary standing committee," a government official said, hoping to re-introduce the bill in the winter session of Parliament starting in November end.

Getting the bill approved in Parliament will not be easy as already four MPs had submitted a dissenting note on standing committee's report and there has been opposition from within the UPA allies on the issue.

The Cabinet will also consider the Central Education Institutions (Reservation in Admission) Bill 2010 which gives institutions six years to implement 27% reservation for other backward classes in higher education institutions. The present law gives institutions three years to implement reservation.

ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Chetan Chauhan
Chetan Chauhan is the National Affairs Editor looking into all aspects of news and features from across India. A Chevening scholar with over three decades of experience in reporting and news management, Chetan has extensively covered all important aspects of the social sector, political economy, environment and climate change nationally and internationally. He did a journalism course at the Reuters Institute of Journalism in Oxford and Digital Media training at Nanyang Technological University in Singapore. He started as a reporter with The Statesman in 1996 and joined the Hindustan Times in 2000 in the metro bureau covering environment, crime and Delhi politics. He covered hot local news, from the Jessica Lal murder case to the rebellion of Delhi Congress MLAs against then Chief Minister Sheila Dikshit, to the replacement of toxic vehicle fuel with cleaner compressed natural gas (CNG) in the national capital. Some of his stories on air pollution became part of the Supreme Court’s landmark MC Mehta versus Government of India case in the National Capital Region (NCR), forcing the government to take corrective measures. As part of the national political bureau since 2004, he covered important central sectors such as environment, education, social justice, labour, rural development, water resources, renewable energy, agriculture, broadcasting and the Planning Commission for more than a decade producing several exclusive and investigative breaking stories. His specialisation is the environment, having covered at least a dozen United Nations global conferences on climate change, biodiversity and wildlife including climate summits in Paris, Copenhagen and Bali. He also covered India’s two five-year plans ---11th and 12th and reported on drafting and execution of right based laws such as Right to Education, Right to Information and rural job guarantee law, MG-NREGA, now being introduced in new format as VG-RAM-G Act. He has in-depth knowledge of social sector issues. He was one of the first to report on tigers vanishing from Sariska and Panna wildlife reserves in 2004 and 2008, respectively, leading to the setting up of the National Tiger Conservation Authority (NTCA) and the introduction of stringent penal provisions for poaching. He has written extensively on the rising human-animal conflict in India and the degradation of India’s biodiversity hotspots because of mining and other activities. Since 2004, Chetan has covered Parliament comprehensively and participated in training on the nuanced coverage of Parliament proceedings. He has travelled extensively across India to cover national and provincial elections since 1998, especially in the Hindi heartland states, considered India’s road to power. He writes a regular column for Hindustan Times, Ecostani, on important national politics, economy, Himalayan ecology and environmental issues. His other responsibilities include providing inputs for edits and edit page articles for the publication, apart from managing news flow from across India.Read More

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