FRA likely to fix NRI seats’ fees in engg, mgmt colleges

Mumbai: The state's Fee Regulating Authority (FRA) may soon decide the upper limit of fees that can be charged from students admitted under the NRI and management quota seats in private unaided professional colleges offering courses in engineering, MBA, pharmacy, law, BEd, among others.While the authority regulates the fees taken from students in these quotas in private colleges under the medical education department, no such upper limit has been fixed for the same quotas in other professional courses governed by the higher and technical education department.For medical, dental, and other allied health science courses, the FRA prohibits private colleges from charging fees exceeding three times the regular fees for management quota seats and not more than five times for NRI quota seats. However, such an upper limit was not decided for other professional courses such as engineering, management, pharmacy, or agricultural courses. A govt official said the FRA was asked to look into this, but the matter is yet to come up for discussion in the quasi-judicial body's meeting.An FRA official said the excess fees (five times or three times the regular fees) taken from NRI and institutional quota students in medical colleges, when included as income, cross-subsidises the fees for students taking admissions in the merit seats. A similar exercise for deciding the quota fees has not been undertaken for higher and technical education department's courses, added the official, stating that the matter is under consideration.A principal from an engineering college said they have to apply to seek NRI quota seats every year to the All-India Council of Technical Education based on the available infrastructure, when they seek an extension of approval. While for most colleges who apply, around 5% of seats are set aside for NRI students from the 20% institutional quota, a few colleges in the city also seek supernumerary seats — over and above their intake capacity — if they have the necessary infrastructure, primarily a hostel facility, he said. However, the principal added, despite an old rule stating that NRI students can be charged up to five times the approved FRA fees, most engineering colleges do not charge higher fees. "For a Rs 2 lakh approved fee, if colleges charge Rs 10 lakh, they may not get enough students to fill their NRI seats," he explained.After the Maharashtra Unaided Private Professional Education Institutions (Regulation of Admissions and Fees) Act of 2015 came into force, no policy was defined for these courses, said another principal.