Till last year, only details of colleges were available, without any information about the fee structure for various courses.

According to a senior official, the directorate uploaded information about colleges and fee structure on tneaonline.org following requests from parents and other stakeholders. “Details of all 461 engineering colleges, including their location, name of the dean, contact number, bank account, nearest railway station, intake capacity and among others are available on the website. Earlier, students had to wait till the counselling session for all such information,” he said.

In addition, students can also download the form to fill the choice of college through the website. “This year, students can choose more than 25 choices of colleges,” the official added.

The website would also have the mobile phone numbers of all members of the recently formed committee to track complaints of excess fee collection. Elaborating on the four-member panel, the official said it is headed by additional director (examinations) of DoTE, M Arularasu with college principals as members. “Apart from fixing the fee, the committee will also monitor every college to see if any management is collecting fees in excess of what is prescribed. Similarly, it will also look into grievances raised by parents and students over any issues they face even after admission,” he said.

As per the prescribed fee structure, the institutions should not collect more than Rs 55,000 per year for category one BE and B Tech courses (like mechanical and civil engineering).

It is Rs 89,000 per year in the case of category two courses (which includes newer streams like artificial intelligence that requires new equipment and lab, which entails additional investment). “The fee is inclusive of all charges, including utilisation charges for lab, computer, internet, sports, library, maintenance, placement and extracurricular activities,” added the official.