New Delhi: Union Human Resource Development Minister Ramesh Pokhriyal ‘Nishank’ has asked the engineering institutes, Indian Institute of Technology (IIT), National Institute of Technology (NIT), and Indian Institute of Information Technology (IIIT) not to increase the tuition fees for the academic session 2020-21.
The minister made the announcement during a live interaction with the students on Tuesday.
“Even though IITs and NITs are autonomous and financially self-regulatory institutes, we had requested them not to take up the annual fee hike for this year considering the coronavirus pandemic. I had asked chairpersons to convey this to all the institute heads and directors and hope that this sentiment would be respected,” the minister said.
Since many non-serious students drop out of the course on getting a job in PSUs, IIT had decided to hike the fee for new MTech admissions from Rs 30,000 to Rs 2 lakh per annum. While 15 per cent of the seats across IITs go vacant every year, the hike will restrict non-serious candidates to apply for the course, the reason cited by the institution.
However, a decision in this regard will be taken in the next council meeting.