Pvt Colleges in Vellore Force SC/ST Students To Pay Fees

VELLORE,

Jan 6, 2015

 Private educational institutions in the district, completely disregarding a Government Order, have been forcing students belonging to SC/ST communities to pay tuition and examination fees and several of them have not been allowed to appear for the examination over non-payment of the fees.

The failure of authorities to act promptly has given a free hand to the institutions to harass the students demanding that they pay the fee in contravention of the GO of June 2012.

The GO  says the institution should not collect fees from the students of SC/ST communities and the same would be paid to the institution by the respective district Adi Dravidar welfare officer after receiving the fund from the State and Central governments.

A group of second and third year students of Ranipet Institute of Technology said they had not received scholarship of `21,700 per year since their first year. They have paid anywhere between `10,000 and 22,500 depending on the fee structure per semester.

“Initially, the management said I need not pay a paise as the fees will be covered under the scholarship. But they asked me to pay `10,000, claiming that they will repay it after getting the scholarship amount from the government,” said a second year EEE student of the institution.

The management even threatened that those SC students, who do not pay the fees, won’t be allowed to attend the exams.

“We have been marked absent for the last two hours of our Friday class despite the fact that we attended them. We were marked absent for not paying the fees. The principal told us that we will not be allowed to attend the semester examination on Monday, if we fail to pay the fee,” the student added.

“The same thing happened during the last semester,” said Kumar (name changed), a second year student of Mechanical Engineering. Several students were not allowed to attend the examination as well as the lab test during the second semester for the same reason.

Kumar, along with about 45 students, petitioned the district administration on Monday to take suitable action against the college administration for not waiving the fees as per the government order. For the polytechnic course, the government gives `6,500 for government quota and `21,700 for management quota. The institutions do not disclose this to the students and admit them with the false promise that they can study free of cost.

The problem is experienced across the State as most of the private institutions do not comply with the GO to waive the tuition and examination fees for the SC students, said an official in the Adi Dravidar Welfare Office in Vellore. “Students had not been issued exam hall tickets, citing non-payment of semester fees of `14,000,” said an official.