NEW DELHI : The University Grants Commission (UGC) has set up a committee to study the fees structure in the Central and state universities, UGC chairman, Prof. Sukhadeo Thorat told reporters on May 4.

"The committees will study the fees structure in different universities and autonomous institutions. They will speak to the stakeholders and submit a report on the ideal fees structure. Accordingly, a decision will be taken," Prof. Thorat, said.

When asked to specify the name of the convenor/chairperson of the committee, Thorat said he was was unable to name the person off-hand and advised this reporter to contact him later. 

He said that the UGC has made the move following recommendations of the Central Advisory Board on Education (CABE).

The CABE committee had earlier recommended a hike in fees of up to 20 per cent of the operational cost on each course. Currently, the fees in the government-run universities is negligible, the CABE committee had said. "That is the recommendation of the CABE committee. But we will review the whole issue and see how much fee can be increased," Prof. Thorat said.

He said at present there is a variation in the fees structure of different institutions like Central universities, state universities, deemed universities and autonomous bodies. "We have already set up a committee to study the fees structure in 
the deemed universities. The committee will also study the admission policies in these institutions," he said. The IITs and IIMs have already decided to go in for a hike in fees, which is under the consideration of the Centre.

The fee review move has triggered off a spate of reactions. Dr Deepak Pental, the vice-chancellor of Delhi University said : ‘‘We haven’t received any communication from the UGC regarding this yet. However, hiking of fees would only be viable if its 
de-linked from the grant-in-aid that is given to universities. Anyway, hiking fees will not be enough to bring about the infrastructure changes required in increasing seats from 1.2 lakhs to 1.8 lakhs, which is what DU needs after implementing the reservations.’’

JNU Vice-Chancellor, B B Bhattacharya, too seems not quite convinced. While he wouldn’t comment, claiming he hadn’t received any letter from UGC about the committee, he admitted that merely hiking fees would not be a solution for infrastructure augmentation, if that was the idea behind setting up the committee. 

The UGC has earmarked Rs 870 crore for expanding the infrastructure in the Central universities for implementing 27 per cent OBC quota, which has been given the go-ahead by the Supreme Court. "The Central universities will have to expand their 
infrastructure. We have set up separate committees for each of 20 Central universities which will decide on enhancing the infrastructure," Prof. Thorat said.