NEW DELHI: In order to give more autonomy to the Indian Institutes of Technology (IITs), it has been decided that they might soon be allowed to decide their own fee structure, regardless of the Apex Council’s recommendations which governs the institution.
According to a source, "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.”
Although there is a little ambiguity regarding whether the new norm will be applied to all the campuses or will be limited to a few of them.
As per current provisions, The IIT Council sets the fee structure, being the top decision-making body. This Council is chaired by the Union human resource development minister and includes directors and board of governors of each IIT.
The IITs are one of the most esteemed autonomous public institutes of higher education in India. There are 23 IITs at present which are located in the following cities: Delhi, Mumbai, Kanpur, Guwahati, Kharagpur, Roorkee, Varanasi, Indore, Chennai, Dhanbad, Bhilai ,Goa, Dharwad, Jammu, Bhubaneswar, Hyderabad, Jodhpur, Gandhinagar, Mandi, Patna, Ropar, Palakkad and Tirupati.
An announcement of the annual fee for undergraduate courses being raised by 122 percent, from existing Rs 90,000 to Rs 2 lakh for all new admissions in the current academic session was made in April by Smriti Irani, former HRD Minister .
Agreeing to the proposal of a high-level IIT panel, the HRD Ministry has also taken a call to waive off the total fee for students belonging to SC, ST and differently-abled categories and also for those hailing from families having an annual income of less than Rs 1 lakh.