The Hindu : Kerala News : Catholicos seeks fair settlement

Online edition of India's National Newspaper
Wednesday, Jun 09, 2004

Kerala

Kerala

Catholicos seeks fair settlement

By Our Special Correspondent

KOCHI, JUNE 8 . The Catholicos of the East and head of the Malankara Orthodox Syrian Church, Baselios Mar Thoma Mathews II, has urged the Chief Minister, A.K. Antony, to see that the professional college fee issue does not upset the peaceful atmosphere in the education sector. He wanted all those concerned to find an amicable settlement to the issue.

In a press release here today, the Catholicos said that it was the duty of the Government to subsidise the education of meritorious students, and not of the private managements running self-financing professional colleges. The Government, he said, was evading this responsibility. It was `unfair and a violation of the rights' of the managements to force them to carry out this responsibility by the Government. He reminded the Government that `not a single paisa' from the tax-payers money was being spent for the self-financing professional colleges.

He said these colleges were only asking for enforcing the norms of admission and fee laid down by the Supreme Court. He noted that the colleges had agreed to allot 50 per cent of the seats to the common merit category. But, they should be allowed to meet the cost of running the institutions from the fees paid by the other students.

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