Telangana govt halts fee hike for engineering, pharmacy, architecture courses, sub-committee formed to probe ‘abnormal’ proposals; college managements call for moderate hike

HYDERABAD: The state govt has put the fee hike for engineering, pharmacy and architecture courses on hold for the academin year 2025-26 and has issued orders to form a sub-committee to look into the issue.This follows the govt noticing that the Telangana Admission and Fee Regulatory Committee (TAFRC) had recommended a significant increase in fees at several colleges based on proposals submitted by the colleges themselves. According to the regulations, fees should be revised once every three years."There have been certain issues regarding fee hikes this year. The proposed increase for some colleges was abnormal.

Therefore, the govt decided to form a committee to investigate these issues," said V Balakista Reddy, chairman of the Telangana Council of Higher Education (TGCHE).He said that they had decided to go ahead with last year's fee and release a notification for EAPCET counselling for admission to engineering and other courses. "We have taken this decision now since forming a committee, conducting an inquiry and submitting a report would be time-consuming," added Reddy.

According to the education department officials, the fees of around 50 colleges were proposed to be hiked abnormally, with some increases amounting to 80-100%. Following this, the committee was asked to re-examine the fee hikes. Subsequently, the state decided to form a sub-committee to look into the issue.Meanwhile, managements said the govt should not punish all colleges by putting the fee revision on hold. "It's true that the proposed fee hike at some colleges was excessive. The govt should have conducted an inquiry into them. Instead of putting the fee revision process on hold, they could have approved a hike of about 20-30% to account for inflation over the last three years," said G Nagaiah, general secretary, Federation of Association of Telangana Higher Institutions.The Federation said they would raise this issue with chief minister A Revanth Reddy and other ministers.