Jammu, Feb 13: The Higher Education Department has increased the fee for undergraduate courses taught in Government Degree Colleges across the state by 10 percent.
The state has also asked the Fee Revision Committee constituted by the government to revise the fee structure after every two years.
Sources said the new revised fee structure will be implemented from this academic session for BA, BSc, BCom, BBA, BCA and other courses being offered by the government colleges in JK.
They said the new structure has been implemented as per the guidelines of the Ministry of Human Resource Development. However the new structure will not be applicable in the private colleges of the state, which will issue a separate fee increase notification after getting approval of the government.
The last hike was affected in 2004, which met strong resistance from the student organizations.
If sources are to be believed, though the department has issued the formal notification on January 12, it has not given much publicity to the new order, fearing resistance from the student organizations, who are already up in arms against the rising cost of the education in the state.
Fee Revision Committee constituted by the government has been conferred with the powers to revise the fee structure after every two years.
Further, the department has ordered that the existing charges for application forms for admission to a course for centralized admission/admission to a particular College plus cost of prospectus of about one hundred pages should not exceed Rs 60.
When contacted, Director Colleges Muqabil Chisti said, “The increase is not that big, we have hiked the fee by 5 to 10 per cent keeping in view the general increase in the cost of education. It is still much less than being charged by private colleges”.
Chisti said that hike has become necessary as additional funds generated would be utilized for the welfare of the students.
Officials said that the government is also planning to increase the course fee of Post Graduate (PG) professional courses like MBA, MCA. The final decision on this count is likely to come in next few days.
Meanwhile, opposing any move to increase the fee of the degree courses, provincial president, Jammu Joint Students Federation (JJSF), Partap Singh Jamwal, said that it will be opposed. “There are hundreds of students belonging to poor families, who cannot afford such increase. The move will further discourage them from pursuing education”.

Lastupdate on : Mon, 13 Feb 2012 21:30:00 Mecca time
Lastupdate on : Mon, 13 Feb 2012 18:30:00 GMT
Lastupdate on : Tue, 14 Feb 2012 00:00:00 IST