The long drawn process of sorting out the fee structure for engineering courses is likely to delay the engineering counselling this year though officials plan to start it from July 16.
Officials are busy reviewing the certificates submitted by 240 colleges as per the Supreme Court directions recently. These colleges had argued for hike in engineering fee and differential fee structure depending on the quality of courses offered and infrastructure provided in their colleges.
Though 240 colleges submitted the applications for review of fee only 50 to 60 colleges followed all the norms and submitted the necessary papers in support of their argument. The remaining submitted applications without any supporting documents like the balance sheet, money being spent for salaries and other facilities. All their applications may be rejected or may not be taken into account in the present conditions. “Unless they give all the records their applications cannot be considered,” the APSCHE Chairman, P. Jayaprakash Rao said.
Officials agree that it is a tough job to study all the proposals and that too in a short time. About five teams are working to analyse the documents submitted. All these colleges will also be called to appear personally before the officials and present their arguments. This entire process might take a long time and unless the fee structure is decided counselling cannot be started. However, Prof. Rao says that if counselling is delayed due to this factor they might take a decision to reserve the fee issue and start the counselling process.
Meanwhile, the NRI quota from this year will be contained to just five per cent as per the AICTE norms. The quota will be applicable to only the sons and daughters of NRIs from now onwards rather than NRI sponsored Indian students.
The decision might affect a few top colleges that were admitting NRI students with a higher fee up to 15 per cent of seats. But the decision will not affect majority colleges where management seats go abegging.
# Unless the fee structure is decided counselling cannot be started
# NRI quota from this year restricted to five per cent as per AICTE norms