Parents decry college fee hike

After fees were increased in city engineering colleges, students and their parents are getting notices from the colleges reminding them that fees have not been paid.

The Telangana Parents' Association has alleged that the Vasavi Engineering College and Sreenidhi Engineering College are putting pressure on parents and students.

In a notice sent to one parent, the college said, “We would like to inform you that appeals filed by the AFRC, state government and petition of Vasavi Engineering College Parents' Association are since dismissed. The High Court bench has upheld the judgement of single judge in the writ petition 7596/2017. As per the judgement, the tuition fee for the college is fixed at `1,60,000 PA for the block period 2016-2019. We request you to pay the above fee within 10 days.”

Srinadh Chakravarthy, president of the Vasavi Engineering College Parents’ Association, said, “My child has got 3,116 rank in TS Eamcet and based on the rank, she got admission in Vasavi Engineering College. At the time the government had decided `86,000 as fees. I was informed by the EAMCET convenor to take a DD of ` 86,000 to pay the fees for admission and during the admission we were asked to sign an undertaking that they (the college) will increase the fee up to `1.60 lakh any time if the court passes the judgement.”

He said after the interim order given by the court, the state government challenged the interim order in the High Court but the HC dismissed the writ appeal and the college has decided to collect the fee of `1.60 lakh.

A member of the TS Engineering College management said, “As the parents had signed an undertaking they are eligible to pay the hiked fees. At the same time even the managements should follow the rules and regulations which were given to the parents during admissions.”