College won?t be cheap

The Planning Commission laid down the law: No free lunches. The Human Resources ministry passed on the message to the University Grants Commission. Now universities and colleges are being told: Hike fees to fund some of your expenses.

Published on: Jan 4, 2006, 14:12:00 IST

PTI | By Chetan Chauhan, New Delhi

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Univs told to hike fee to meet part of their expense

The Planning Commission laid down the law: No free lunches. The Human Resources ministry passed on the message to the University Grants Commission. Now universities and colleges are being told: Hike fees to fund some of your expenses.

In short, students of most universities in the country funded by UGC -- Delhi University and Jawaharlal Nehru University included -- can expect a fee hike. The size of the hike has been left to the universities.

The universities are being told that at least 20 per cent of their expenses must be met through fees. This may send Delhi University fees, for instance, rocketing. At present only three per cent of its expenses are met through fees.
JNU stands to suffer most. Collections from fees meet only one per cent of its expenses.

Neither of the two -- HRD or UGC - is happy doing this. The HRD ministry had sought an additional Rs 2,379 crore for 18 central universities, 200 state universities and for hundreds of UGC funded colleges.

The Planning Commission had other ideas. One of its members, Dr Bhalchandra Mungekar, told education secretary Sudeep Banerjee recently the state-funded universities and colleges can collect at least 20 per cent through fees.

There are very few universities which are already collecting that much or more. Fees accounts for 39 per cent of the income of Bombay University, 30.1 per cent in case of Kerala University and 46.8 per cent for Madras university.

But these are just a few honourable exceptions. Most others happily live of the government.

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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