IITs may get to decide their own tuition fees

The Indian Institutes of Technology (IITs) may soon be get a free hand to decide their own fee structure, without consulting the apex council governing the engineering institutions.

According to latest reports, the move to give a free hand to the institution's various campuses is aimed at enhancing their autonomy.

"The Board of Governors are likely to be given the authority to decide the fee structure for the respective IIT. Currently, they are part of the fee deciding process but are not the final authority," a source said.

However, it wasn't immediately clear whether the idea if approved, will be applicable to all IITs or limited campuses.

At present, the fee structure is determined by the IIT council, the top decision-making body, which is chaired by the Union human resource development minister and includes IIT directors and board of governors of each institute.

The IITs are autonomous public institutes of higher education. The 23 IITs are located in following cities: Bhilai, Chennai, Delhi, Dhanbad, Dharwad, Goa, Guwahati, Jammu, Kanpur, Kharagpur, Mumbai, Roorkee, Bhubaneswar, Gandhinagar, Hyderabad, Indore, Jodhpur, Mandi, Palakkad, Patna, Ropar, Tirupati and Varanasi.

Former HRD Minister Smriti Irani had in April announced an increase in the annual fees for undergraduate courses from existing Rs 90,000 to Rs 2 lakh, a rise of 122 per cent, for new enrollments from the current academic session.

The Ministry had also decided to give a total fee waiver for the differently-abled, students from SC and ST community and those belonging to families with annual income less than Rs 1 lakh, following a proposal by a high-level IIT panel.

- PTI