Now, pay more for your engineering course in Karnataka

Those seeking admission to professional engineering colleges may end up paying higher fees irrespective of their Common Entrance Test (CET) rankings.

In an order of far-reaching consequences, the Karnataka high court on Wednesday directed the state government to notify the fee structure recommended by the Justice B Padmaraj Committee report on or before June 8 for colleges that have declined to be part of any consensual arrangement with the authorities.

Effectively, this means that the state government will be forced to implement the recommendations of the fee regulatory committee headed by Justice B Padmaraj which were submitted to the state government on March 7, 2011, but have not yet been made public.  The committee is said to have recommended high fees, even going up to Rs1.25 lakh, for premier colleges. The least fee recommended is said to be about Rs30,000.

The high court order signals an end to the imbroglio over the fee structure and seat sharing in professional engineering colleges in Karnataka as the state government cannot challenge the high court order in Supreme Court. This is so because it was the state government which had formed the fee determination committee headed by justice Padmaraj two years ago based on a direction by the Supreme Court.

Besides, the Karnataka Professional Educational Institutions (Regulation of admission and determination of fee) Act 2006, too, stresses the need for a fee determination committee. Turn, p4