2 Ghaziabad schools told to refund excess fee

Ghaziabad: The District Fee Regulatory Committee (DFRC) has ordered two private schools — St Teresa Schooland Presidium School — to refund/adjust excess fee they charged from students in the 2018-19 academic year. The schools have been barred from hiking the fees in the 2019-20 session. The DFRC has also given five private schools time till Thursday to submit documents related to fee hike.
The committee has asked all schools to upload fee related information on the websites failing which action would be taken against them under relevant sections of the Uttar Pradesh Self Finance Independent School Fee Regulation Act, 2018.
“After scrutiny of documents provided by schools, it was found that two schools charged excess fee in the 2018-19 academic year. So, they have been ordered to either refund the excess amount or adjust that in the 2018-19 academic session,” said Ritu Maheshwari, the district magistrate of Ghaziabad, and chairperson of the DFRC.
The committee had found that excess fee charged from each student, from Nursery to Class XI, by St Teresa School was between Rs 3,131 to Rs 16,710. Similarly, Presidium School, Indirapuram, took an excess of Rs 17,257 to Rs 40,809 from each student between Nursery and Class XII in the 2018-19 session. “These schools have been ordered not to hike the fee for the academic year 2019-20,” said Maheshwari. Documents provided by Indirapuram Public School are under scrutiny.
Sapphire International School, Crossings Republik, was earlier asked to pay a fine of Rs 1 lakh. Chaya Public School, Vaishali, Uttam Girls Public School, Shastrinagar, DPS, Vasundhara, and Modern School, Vaishali, have been asked to submit documents by Thursday.