The standing committee of the IIT council has approved a 200% fee hike, thus upping the annual tuition fees from Rs 90,000 to Rs 3 lakh for undergraduate students. At the same time, interest-free scholarships will be offered under the Vidyalakshmi scheme.
While the final decision on the hike rests with the IIT council headed by HRD minister Smriti Irani, the SCIC, which met on Thursday , studied the average cost per student and felt that 60% should be collected from them. “On an average, it costs a bit over Rs 5 lakh a year to educate one student at an IIT. But while we approve the increase in fees, we also want to assure students that there will be scholarships and loans and the IIT gates will be open to all, irrespective of their means,” said SCIC chairman Ashok Misra. A committee that included the directors of the Bombay , Madras, Kanpur and Hyderabad IITs, had drawn up a document – ‘Roadmap to Financial Autonomy of IITs’ in consultation with the HRD and finance ministries in which it recommended the hike. This, the panel had stated, would be enough to cover costs incurred by way of salaries and maintenance.A highly placed ministry source, however, made it clear that a hike of this proportion will not be accepted and a middle path could be found Fee hike for post-graduate students will be examined later. “The standing commit tee does not take decisions We only prepare agenda for the IIT council,” Bhaskar Ramamurthi, director, IIT Madras, told TOI.
