The costly affair of vacant seats

At a time when the engineering colleges in the State are having vacant seats, the State Govrenment’s move to hike course fees has sparked a debate among experts in the city.

Despite a poor turn-out of students during admissions, the Skill Development and Technical Education Department under Sub-Section 7 of Section 6 of the Orissa Professional Educational Institutions (Regulation of Admission & Fixation of Fee) Act, 2007, issued a notification to make an upward revision in the fee structure of courses such as engineering, MTech, BArch, MArch, MBA and MCA in private institutes.

“Increasing course fee can not be questioned as every institute does so. However, the question is about its timing,” academicians in the city said. They pointed out that even after JEE (main) and Special OJEE more than 26,000 seats are expected to remain vacant at various private engineering colleges during 2018-19 academic session.

Odisha has 80 private engineering colleges and half of it are functioning in Bhubaneswar and Cuttack, where the seat vacancy has remained over 60 per cent in the past two years.

The Odisha Private Engineering College Association (OPECA), however, said fee revision has noting to do with seat vacancy.

“The fee structure has nothing to do with seat vacancy. It is a question of demand and supply and depends on the colleges,” said OPECA General Secretary Binod Dash. “The fee structure has been increased only in those colleges where the demand for admission is high,” he added.

OPECA observed that 25 per cent seat reservation for outstation students will also benefit the privat e institutes.

Students coming from other states, especially from Jharkhand and Bihar, mostly prefer Bhubaneswar for their higher studies. This way it will help engineering colleges to fill the gap, the association members said.

OJEE Chairman Sudeep Kumar Chand opined that the revised fee structure will not affect admission into engineering colleges. “If a comparison is drawn, many government degree colleges where the fee is very minimal also witness poor enrolment. So fee structure cannot be a reason for poor turn out of students into engineering colleges,” the OJEE chairman said.

The new rate chart

As per the notification issued by the state Technical Education department the fee for B.Tech courses has been hiked for some colleges between `9,000 and `30,000.

Fee for CV Raman College of Engineering, that has received “A” grade accreditation from National Assessment and Accreditation Council (NAAC), has been increased to 1.14 lakh from `89,000. The candidates have to pay `1.25 lakh for M.Tech course to the institute.

For Gandhi Institute for Technological Advancement (GITA), the BTech course fee is `1.06lakh against `78,000 for the previous year. The MTech fee of the institute has also been increased to `1.16lakh from existing `86,000.

At Gandhi Engineering College (GEC), Bhubaneswar the B.Tech course fee has been hiked to `1.10 lakh and `85,000 , Bhubaneswar. The M.Tech course fee has been increased to Rs 1.10 lakh and Rs 93,000 at Gandhi Engineering College (GEC) and Gandhi Institute For T e c h n o l o g y ( G I F T ) respectively.

The MBA and MCA course fees have also been increased by `9,000 upto `27,000 in these private institutes. Likewise, fee for B.Arch and M.Arch courses have also been hiked to `81,000 and `89,000 respectively. For SGI School of Architecture, Bhubaneswar the course fee has been fixed at `55,000.