State govt to wait for Centre's enactment

State govt to wait for Centre's enactment The state government has put the onus of framing a legislation for the regulation of admissions and fee structure at private unaided professional institutions, on the central government.

"A legislation on the issue of regulating admissions and fees at unaided institutions is presently under consideration by the central government. We will act on the basis of the enactment, which will be passed by the central government," minister for higher and technical education Rajesh Tope has said in a written reply to the State Assembly here on Thursday.

The enactment is critical to ensuring an apt legal backing to the Shikshan Shulka Samiti (Fee Regulation Committee), which the state government had set up by way of issuing a government resolution (GR) in 2003 in the wake of the Supreme Court's landmark judgement on cost-based education.

Tope's reply to a query raised BJP MLA Devendra Phadanvis and others, goes contrary to the stance taken by his (Tope's) predecessor and the present assembly speaker, Dilip Walse Patil, who had said in the past that the state government won't wait for the central government to bring the legislation.

In fact, the higher and technical education department had then prepared a draft legislation for consideration by different stakeholders in higher education.

According to Milind Wagh of the Forum Against Commercialisation of Education (FACE), "The apex court had asked the central and the state governments to pass a legislation on regulating admission and fees at unaided colleges. The existing committees for regulating admissions and fees were part of an interim measure till the enactment is passed." Southern states like Kerala, Karnataka, Andhra Pradesh and Tamil Nadu have already passed enactments of their own for regulating admission and fees at unaided colleges, said Wagh.

The query raised by Phadanvis and others stated that the delay in framing of the legislation for the Shikshan Shulka Samiti was causing undue problems to students as the institutions continue to exploit them on some pretext or the other.

As of now, the Shikshan Shulka Samiti handles fee proposals of over 2,100 unaided institutions offering higher and technical courses and another 200-odd institutions offering courses in health sciences including medical, dental, ayurveda, homeopathy, unani and nursing, among others.