Bengaluru,  A consensual agreement has been reached between the Karnataka government and private colleges to not hike the fees in engineering courses in private colleges, state Minister for Higher Education, C.N. Ashwath Narayan, said on Wednesday.

The decision was taken at a meeting with representatives of private engineering colleges. Following the agreement, the fees for engineering courses in private colleges for students who secure admission this year under government quota will continue as earlier in two different slabs of Rs 65,340 and Rs 58,806, the Minister said.

"The other important decision drawn in the meeting was that maximum cap of Rs 20,000 each has been fixed for fees collected in the form of 'miscellaneous fees' and 'skill fees'. This decision has been taken as per the recommendations of a committee headed by Karisiddappa, the Vice-Chancellor of Vishwesharaiah Technical University (VTU)," Narayan said.

"The other major decision is that starting from this year, the admission fees, miscellaneous fees and skill fees should not be remitted at colleges. Now, these should be remitted at the Karnataka Examination Authority (KEA). Earlier, 'miscellaneous fees' used to vary from college to college starting from Rs 10,000 to up to Rs 70,000. But now this should not exceed Rs 20,000.

"Before prescribing the 'miscellaneous fees', colleges should notify the purposes for which it is being collected. The same information needs to be provided to the KEA, Department of Technical Education and VTU and published on the website. This also should be remitted with KEA," the minister elaborated.

Earlier, there was a provision to pay admission fees at colleges, but now onwards this also should be paid at the KEA, he said, adding that this decision has been taken to eliminate the confusions that existed.

Some colleges also used to collect 'skill fees' for providing additional skill training to increase the employability of students. This was optional and the fees for this used to vary from college to college.

Now, a a cap has been fixed of a maximum of Rs 20,000. This will have three slabs of Rs 10,000, Rs 15,000 and Rs 20,000. A team of VTU will inspect the colleges and fix any one of this depending on the standard of training facilities and quality, which also should be remitted to KEA, the minister said.

While the private colleges had pressed for increase in fees by 30 per cent, the committee headed by Karisiddappa had recommended a hike of 15-25 per cent.

But in view of the Covid situation, the representatives of private colleges were convinced against a hike, the minister informed.

Narayan also said that engineering education in Kannada will begin in four colleges from the current year itself.

Bheemanna Khandre Institute of Technology, Bhalki (Civil); BLDAE VP Dr. P.G. Halakatti College of Engineering, Vijayapura (Civil); SJC Institute of Technology, Chikkaballapura (Mechanical); and Maharaja Institute of Technology, Mysuru (Mechanical) will start to teach in Kannada, he said.