HYDERABAD : The Admissions f and Fee Regulatory Committee has decided to retain the existing fee structure for engineering, pharmacy, MBA, MCA, M.Tech, t M.Pharmacy and B.Ed courses. It has rejected the demand of the managements of professional colleges to f increase the fees by 30-50 per cent.

In the convenor's quota, the fees for BE, B.Tech and B.Pharmacy courses will be `31,000 per annum, for a MBA and MCA it will be `27,000, for B.Ed it will be `13,500, for LLB `9,600, for LLM `21,600, for Pharm-D `68,000 and for ME/M.Tech it will be `57,000 per annum.

In the management quota, the fees for BE, B.Tech and B.Pharmacy courses will be `95,000 per annum, for MBA/MCA it will be `78,000, for B.Ed `13,500, for LLB `32,000, for LLM `33,800, for Pharm-D `1,55,000 and for ME and M.Tech it will be `1,25,000 per annum.

While the decision comes as a relief for students, college managements have termed it “unilateral“ and said it would adversely affect the standards in professional colleges across the state. They said it was not possible to run the colleges with the existing fee structure since AICTE and the state government have tightened the norms with regard to implementation of AICTE pay scales for faculty and for providing infrastructure.

They allege that the government rejected their fee hike proposal only to ensure that it is not burdened further by the fee reimbursement scheme — the higher the fee the more the state government has to pay under the scheme.

They said that faculty salaries have gone up by almost 50 per cent from 2009 since the sixth pay commission came intoforce.

“The fees paid by students are the only source of income for private professional colleges. About 65 per cent of our total expenditure constitutes payment of salaries for faculty. We will be left with little finances to improve infrastructure and to maintain teacher-student ratio of 1:15 as mandated by AICTE.