Breaking News: IITs Hike Annual Fees by 80%

Thursday, January 10, 2013

Posted by: Disha Pandey

The IITs have revised the annual fees for undergraduate courses with effect from 2013.

The IIT fees revision has occurred only twice before the present one—in 1998 and 2008. The recent proposal of 80% fee hike has raised the IIT fees from the current Rs.50,000 a year to Rs.90,000, the steepest IIT fees rise in terms of the amount raised. However, how can we forget the 100% fee rise in 2008 when the IIT fees was doubled for undergraduate courses from Rs.25,000 to Rs.50,000 a year.

Seeing the brighter side of things, if we compare the IIT fees to the engineering and technology institutions in the West, the difference is astonishing. One among the world’s top 10 engineering institutions, Massachusetts Institute of Technology, charges Rs.22.55 lakh ($41,770) annually as tuition fee. Another giant among the world’s top 10 engineering institutions, Carnegie Mellon, exceeds the prior and charges Rs.24.23 lakh ($44,880) as the annual tuition fee for the graduate engineering programme. Isn’t that relaxing for those who stay in India?

It is even more relaxing for the weaker sections like STs and OBCs because the standing committee of the IIT council has decided the IIT fee hike would not affect the students belonging to weaker sections like STs and OBCs. No tuition will be charged to STs and SCs. Mess, hostel, and book bank facilities are also kept free for STs and SCs.

Before the final verdict on January 7, 2013, Monday, a ministry official said, "The proposed fee of Rs.90,000 per annum is still way less than what good private institutes charge today. Moreover, many general category students are also covered under scholarship. So effectively, this hike will only affect 30% of the total students." IITs are providing 100 per cent scholarships to one fourth of the students whose parental income is less than Rs.4.5 lakh a year.

It is expected that the fee of the premier IITs may ascend every year by Rs.4 lakh.

An IIT director clarifies that “The fee hike would be applicable to students who would come in from the 2013 academic year.”

Sources: Times of India, The Hindu, Business Standard.