State hikes affiliation NOC fee by almost 1,200%

Nagpur: Schools in Maharashtra seeking affiliation to other boards (CBSE, IB etc), will now have to shell out a whopping 1,200% more for the mandatory NOC application fee. Under the new fee structure, which has already taken effect, the NOC application has been hiked to Rs2.5 lakh from the earlier Rs20,000.
School associations say this sharp hike is unjustified. Rajendra Dayma, president of Independent English Schools’ Association (IESA), said, “I went through the GR issued by the government and nowhere have they mentioned the rationale behind the sharp increase. It’s hard to even imagine that fee has been increased by almost 13 times and there is not even a single line explaining the reason behind it.” He added that the government should have at least consulted schools.
And if this sharp one-time hike was not enough, schools got another shocker. Every three years, schools will have to shell out Rs1.5 lakh as renewal fees, which earlier was fixed at Rs10,000. This means the state education department will earn an average revenue of Rs15 crore every three years from CBSE schools alone as there are just over a thousand affiliated institutes. It is not known exactly how many schools are affiliated to other boards, but it would definitely be much less than CBSE.
TOI reached out to additional chief secretary Vandana Krishna, who is in charge of the school education department, for a comment on the sharp increase but received no response.
A local education official, who did not wish to be identified, said school associations are purposely raking up an issue. “For them it’s peanuts. To pay Rs1.5 lakh every three years is petty cash. These big schools operate with 2,000 kids on the rolls. So, every year they need to collect just Rs25 per child to meet that expense,” said the officer, who clarified that he too did not know the reason for the sharp increase in NOC fee.
Meanwhile, IESA president Dayma is planning to approach education minister Varsha Gaikwad and ask for a rollback. Dayma said “Budget schools will suffer the most. They neither have high enrolment nor do they charge high fee. How will they pay such a hefty amount every three years.”