PUNE: Even though admissions to unaided diploma courses for 651 engineering, technical and pharmacy colleges have been excluded from the process of common entrance test held by Admission Regulatory Authority (ARA) for academic year 2018-19, the Fee Regulatory Authority (FRA) will continue monitoring the fee structure for these courses.
According to a recent notification by Higher and Technical Education Department of the State government, FRA has been instructed to monitor whether the colleges exceed the upper limit of fees charged to students from academic year 2019-20. As per the July 5, 2018 notification, it was declared that admissions to diploma courses for polytechnic (post-SSC), pharmacy, hotel management and food and beverages management (post-HSC) will be undertaken by the Directorate of Technical Education (DTE), Mumbai.
“This circular, released in July, stated that unaided colleges offering diploma courses were excluded from the ambit of ARA. Therefore, FRA will no more monitor these courses. FRA determines fee structure for courses which are administered under ARA,” said Rajendra Gaikwad, Assistant Joint Director of DTE, Pune region. “So, the new GR dated October 30, points out that FRA had determined the fee structure of all diploma course colleges till 2018-19. However, if any college wants to hike its fees for academic year 2019-20 or onwards, then these colleges can approach FRA for approval unless they want to continue with current approved fee structure,” said Gaikwad.
According to section 22 of Maharashtra Unaided Private Professional Educational Institutions (Regulation of Admissions and Fees) Act, 2015, fee structure of all unaided and permanently unaided diploma colleges offering engineering and technical, pharmacy and hotel management and food and beverages management has been approved by FRA for the academic year 2018-19. If any college wants to amend or increase the fee structure for academic years 2019-20 or further, it should seek approval from FRA,” read the excerpt of the notification.
