Date:10/08/2007 URL: http://www.thehindu.com/2007/08/10/stories/2007081050110100.htm

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Mohammed panel fee for all seats

Staff Reporter

THIRUVANANTHAPURAM: All students getting admission to private self-financing professional colleges that have signed seat-fee agreements with the Government will be charged the fee fixed by the P.A. Mohammed fee regulatory committee for various courses.

The process of conditional allotment of seats to professional colleges will begin on August 16, Education Minister M.A. Baby said at a press conference here on Thursday. Classes will begin on September 13.

Students getting admission to private self-financing colleges will have to execute a bond promising to pay any higher fee that may be fixed as a result of verdicts by the Court or by any other competent authority. This is not applicable to Non-Resident Indian (NRI) seats.

If, on the other hand, the Court approves the pact signed between the managements and the Government the managements will pay back the students the excess money. (The fee specified for government seats in self-financing colleges in the pacts is lower than what will be charged now on the basis of the Mohammed panel recommendation.) The Government will guarantee such a repayment, Mr. Baby said.

In 50 per cent of seats in self-financing professional colleges under the Government, the fee will be what is charged in government professional colleges.

In 35 per cent of the rest of the seats the fee fixed by the Mohammed committee will be charged. Here too the students will have to give a bond to the effect that they will pay a higher fee if and when such a higher fee is fixed, Mr. Baby said.