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NT Bureau
Chennai, Aug 7:

        The State government has decided to form 50 permanent committees to prohibit engineering colleges from taking tuition fee more than what is prescribed.

        These committees will have a constant tab on the activities of self financing colleges, try and prevent exorbitant fee and will recommend action against erring institutions.

        In the recent days, there had been a number of complaints from the parents to the government stating that private engineering colleges have been collecting fees over and above what was fixed by a committee appointed by the State.

        Counselling for admissions to engineering colleges through Single Window System (SWS) is underway at Anna University, Chennai.

        To avoid collection of excess fees, the Higher Education department had requested the parents to come forward to lodge complaints against the erring colleges.

        Although parents showed little interest in filing complaints due to various reasons including fear of adverse consequences, they mustered courage to go ahead when the situation turned unbearable at a time when the counselling was half way through.

        The first complaint came against St Joseph's College of Engineering at Sholinganallur near Chennai. The Directorate of Technical Education (DoTE) officials, following a complaint by a student visited the college and verified the documents.

        The surprise raids continued across the State in 142 self-financing engineering colleges and the DoTE officials after going through the documents found that some of these were collecting huge fees.

        Around 33 colleges were found demanding more fees and the government has decided to take strict action against them by forwarding the list of colleges to All India Council for Technical Education (AICTE) to cancel recognition from next year.

        Meanwhile, the drive continued and seven self-financing engineering colleges in Chennai came into scanner yesterday.

        With overflowing complaints from the parents, the government has now decided to form 50 permanent committees to look into the activities of the engineering colleges.

        Each committee would monitor five colleges and would be headed by principals of government engineering and polytechnic colleges.

        The committee would visit self-financing engineering colleges regularly. They would look into the complaints lodged by the students on collection of excess fees. Later, the complaints would be forwarded to the government for legal action, according to government sources.