Studying in the Indian Institutes of Technology (IITs) will be an expensive affair from the current academic year as the Ministry of Human Resource Development has increased the annual fee for undergraduate courses, from Rs 90,000 to Rs 2 lakh. The official order will be issued on Friday.
The 23 IITs in the country have been pushing for a fee hike for quite some time. According to sources, managing the operational cost is getting difficult. The panel consisting of directors and senior officials of the IIT Council approved a proposal for the three-fold hike in the annual fee.
Recommendations were put forth by Devang Khakhar, Director of IIT Bombay, who headed the panel that proposed changes in the fee structure of IITs. HRD Minister Smriti Z Irani has approved the proposal.
The decision comes a day after Irani waived off fee for SC/STs, Dalits, and disabled seeking admissions to the IITs.
The panel had even proposed to replace the Joint Engineering Entrance Mains with an Engineering Aptitude Test. The proposed aptitude test is likely to be at par with SAT conducted in the US for admissions to various colleges.
The hike comes as a shock for many parents in Hyderabad as they end up paying lakhs towards IIT coaching alone. “I have already spent more than a lakh on my son’s coaching and tuitions since he was in Class 8. The hike in admission fee is an additional burden,” said Maheswar Rao.
Experts believe that it’s a welcome move given the rising inflation in the country. “Even expenses in school education run in lakhs. The fee in other private engineering institutions is anywhere between Rs 2.5 to Rs 3 lakh. The hike in IITs is justified as the infrastructure, and research facilities will improve,” opined Sankara Rao, a lecturer at Narayana IIT Academy.
In the recently released rankings by the MHRD, IITs topped the list in the engineering category. More than 12 lakh IIT aspirants appeared for the JEE Mains this year, and the top 1.5 lakh students will make it to JEE Advanced.