Seems like the confusion over the engineering fee hike, uniform fee structure, fee-reimbursement counselling schedule, etc., is clear now. After heavy discussions, the state CM on 30Aug’12 has finally announced the details of engineering fees, counselling schedule and fee reimbursement.
The row over engineering fee structure started in mid-July, this year, when a group of engineering colleges in AP filed a petition asking the state government to approve enhanced differential fee structure for convenor and management quota engineering seats. Since, then, the issue has taken many diversions with Supreme Court and High Court rulings and state government’s decision.
Now that everything is settled, we have tried to gather all the court rulings and state government orders in this regard, so as to give a clear picture on the finalized engineering fee structure for Cat A and Cat B seats by AFRC and the counselling schedule for engineering admissions for 2012-13 academic year.
AP has the highest number of engineering colleges
Andhra Pradesh has the highest number of engineering colleges and seats than any other state in India. According to the sources, state accounts for 20.6 % of engineering seats of the country. The state currently has as many as 689 private engineering colleges with over 3,64,000 seats. 70% of the seats will be filled under convenor quota through counseling, while the rest 30% are management quota seats. The highest number of seats are available in streams, ECE (92,000) and CSE (77,890). And the seats available in various other streams are Mechanical (57,000), EEE (56,000), Civil (39,000) and IT (27,500).
Number of students opting for engineering this year
While 2,83,477 students appeared Eamcet this year only 2,23,886 students got qualified. But according to sources, only around two lakh students would be eligible for admissions as others could not get through their Intermediate examination. Of the eligible two lakh students, around 25-30,000 have already joined engineering in other states because of the delayed counselling in AP and few thousands have joined in IITs and NITs. With this, there are not even two students for every three seats and it is expected that more than 1,50,00 lakh engineering seats are going to remain vacant this year.
SC’s first ruling – uniform fee for Cat A and Cat B seats
This is the first order issued by the supreme Court on 02 Aug’12 ruling the petition filed by the state government. According to this order, there should be uniform fee structure for the convenor (category A) quota and management (category B) quota seats, in all the engineering colleges of Andhra Pradesh. This decision was taken to prevent the private college managements from collecting hefty amounts of fees in the name of management quota seats. Previously, the fee in the convener quota was Rs 31,000 and that for the management quota was Rs 90,000.
Fee fixed for the academic year 2012-13
After the Supreme Court’s decision to make the fee uniform for both the A and B category seats to 50,200, the tuition fee issue underwent many twists and turns. Finally on 25th Aug’12, the state fixed common fees for engineering courses (for cat A and B) for this academic year (2012-13) as Rs 35,000 for 604 colleges with combined seat strength of 1,92,311. It also announced that a differential structure will be followed in 85 colleges which claim to have good facilities ranging from Rs 52,000 to Rs 1,05,000 for 33,243 seats. Among the 85 colleges, in which the differential fees was fixed, CBIT, Hyderabad, topped the list with the highest fees of Rs 1,05,000, followed by Vasavi at Rs 98,700.
Fee reimbursement for SC, ST, BC, and EBC
The state government begun the issue of fee reimbursement stating that it will fix a cap on tuition fee reimbursement at Rs 31,000 per annum. But with strong allegations from the apposition parties and students, on 30 Aug’12, AP state CM finally announced a new fee reimbursement policy. As per the new policy, government will pay the total fee to the eligible candidates studying in all the 604 colleges charging Rs 35,000 and for the eligible students in the remaining 85 colleges, where the fee ranges from Rs 52,000 to Rs 1,05,000. But, only selected category of students will get the entire fee reimbursed.
The selected categories are as follows: all SC and ST students – BPL (below poverty line) students who have pursued Intermediate courses with financial aid from the government – BPL students who secured below 10,000 ranks in Eamcet.
Eamcet web counselling
Though the web-based Eamcet counselling for the admissions in to convenor quota seats was scheduled on 30 Aug’12, it was rescheduled to accommodate few more colleges which submitted their affidavits late to the High Court. The revised counselling schedule started from 27th Aug’12 and the students are allowed to choose options from 31 Aug’12 till 9 Sep’12.
No online admission for management quota seats
Though the state government has released new GOs 66 and 67, stating that the admissions for the management quota seats in all the engineering colleges shall be made online, the state High Court made a stay against the orders. Since the order to conduct online admissions was announced after the Eamcet notification which was legally invalid and as the managements have already sold out the seats, the apex body stated that the online admissions will not be permitted for this year. Thus, the admissions procedure for Cat B seats will be conducted similar to the procedure followed last year for admissions.
Sources: DC, Hans India, TOI, IBN, The Hindu