New Delhi: Indian Institute of Technology (IITs) has hiked the annual tuition fees for undergraduate (UG) courses by 80% i.e. Rs 40, 000. At present the fee is Rs 50, 000, and with this hike, it will be Rs 90,000. The increased fee will be made effective from this academic session 2013. The decision of hiking the fee was finalized by the council of IIT at a meeting held in IIT-Delhi, recently.
While announcing the hike, Pallam Raju, the minister for state for Human Resource Development (HRD), mentioned the Dr. Anil Kakodkar Committee's recommendation to make IITs financially independent on non-plan (operation) budgetary support to meet their operating expenditure. He stated that IITs have enhanced the tuition fee to Rs 90,000 per annum from 2013.
Also, the revised rates will be applicable to new entrants of UG programmes and fee will be reviewed every year, but it doesn't mean that it will be hiked every year, he said. The minister further clarified that like the IIMs, HRD ministry want the IITs to be sustainable and fee is one of the ways. Barely 20% of the entire budget comes from fees in IITs. According to sources, an IIT spends around Rs 2.25 lakh per annum per student.
Raju, also made clear that no qualified student will be turned away because of financial constraints. SC, ST students don't have to pay any hostel or tuition fees. Also 25% of the students whose annual household income is Rs 4.5 lakh or less will continue to get 100% scholarships, he added. The last fee revision was done in the 2008-09 academic session when the tuition fee was increased from Rs 25,000 to Rs 50,000.
Another decision taken at the meeting is that IITs will train graduates from National Institutes of Technology (NITs) to teach as they pursue their masters or PhDs at IIT. The council decided to enable top 15% students from NITs for a joint IIT-NIT trainee teacher scheme, whereby the NIT graduates will get teacher training at IITs and simultaneously pursue their master or PhD programmes to salvage the shortage of teaching faculty in the country.
Moreover, the IITs also resolved to ramp up their PhDs from 3,000 to 10,000 by 2020. While approving the recommendations of the Empowered Task Force headed by Dr Anil Kakodkar the Council has decided to relax conditions for enrolment into PhD programmes in IITs.
