IIT Council to Review 122 Percent Fee Hike Introduced by Irani-Led HRD Ministry

The meeting of IIT Council is scheduled to take place on April 28, 2017, at Mumbai. The major purpose of this meeting is to review the 122 percent fee hike proposed by MHRD by the then Minister - Smriti Irani in April 2016. The council will deliberate on the fee hike as well as financial concessions for special category students. According to sources, fee hike and financial concessions are the top priority agendas that will be discussed during the meet.

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IIT Council expressed their concern regarding the fee hike and special concessions at a meeting that was held in August 2016. The Council claimed that the fee hike was proposed to increase the revenue of Indian Institutes of Technology. However, the idea to enhance the revenue of IITs had failed due to the financial concessions introduced by MHRD to special category students.

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The Council is also planning to deliberate on the proposal to replace fee waiver with reimbursement policy by either the Ministry of Social Justice and Empowerment or Ministry of Human Resource and Development. According to sources, the Council may ask either of the two to reimburse the cost of educating students who are entitled to complete fee waiver. The reimbursement must be done to IITs.

The Council also recommended interest-free loans to the students from economically weaker sections instead of partial or full fee waiver.

Due to the 122 percent fee hike introduced in April 2016, the tuition fee for undergraduate (UG) students at Indian Institutes of Technology increased from Rs. 90,000 to Rs. 2,00,000 for all new admissions.