New Delhi:
Directors of the Indian Institutes of Technology (IITs) are likely to hold a meeting with the HRD Ministry soon on the issue of fee hike.
After the recent increase in fees by IIMs, the IITs have sought to double their fees and the proposed meeting in the next few days with HRD Minister Arjun Singh is expected to discuss the matter threadbare, ministry sources said on Thursday.
The meeting assumes significance in the backdrop of IIM-Ahmedabad announcing a steep hike in the fees and the desire expressed by the IITs to follow suit from the next academic session to improve their ",economic health",.
The sources said the revision of fees in IITs, last carried out in 1998, appeared inevitable.
",There is a proposal to hike the fee. But the final decision will come from the government,", Prof Surendra Prasad, Director of IIT Delhi, said earlier. The proposal has been made to help augment the premier institute's resources, he had said.
The annual fees in the seven IITs could be doubled to Rs 50,000, he said.
The proposed fee structure, once accepted, will be implemented in the seven IITs. Over 4,000 students take admission to courses in the IITs at Kharagpur, Mumbai, Chennai, Delhi, Kanpur, Guwahati and Roorkee every year.
The Standing Committee of the IIT Council headed by C N R Rao, Principal Scientific Adviser to the Prime Minister, has in its recommendations submitted recently suggested urgent revision of the fees.