With the issue of common fee for engineering colleges back to square one, after AP High Court on Friday ruled that the fees have to be fixed as per recommendations of the Adm-issions and Fee Regulatory Committee, the state government has intensified efforts to ensure all colleges accept its proposal of Rs 35,000 as the common fee.
While many colleges have already yielded, the government is learnt to be making efforts to ensure all others submit affidavits to this effect to the AFRC by Saturday evening.
The AFRC is scheduled to meet on Saturday to decide the fee structure in engineering colleges and recommend it to the government on Monday.
The ‘pressure tactics’ adopted by the government seemed to have worked to a large extent, with 724 colleges submitting affidavits to AFRC till Friday accepting Rs 35,000 as the common fee. Of them, 430 are engineering colleges, 73 MBA, 36 MCA and 185 are pharmacy colleges.
Sources said the government deliberately ‘leaked’ information on Friday that colleges that fail to submit affidavits accepting Rs 35,000 as the fee have to face the ‘consequences’ in the form of raids and inspections, among others.
Pressing the panic button, many college authorities made a beeline for the AFRC on Friday itself to submit their affidavits, sources said.
Prominent groups such as Malla Reddy Group of Institutions, MLR, St Mary’s and Holy Mary, which run a chain of professional colleges, submitted affidavits to AFRC acc-epting the prescribed fee.
The Committee is likely to recommend the fee proposed by the government, contending that the managements had approached them seeking `35,000 as fees in affidavits.
While nearly 200 colleges are still to submit affidavits to the AFRC, the government is hopeful that they will also fall in line by Saturday evening.
The government expects only a handful of colleges to not yield to the pressure tactic and seek a further hike, but officials indicated that they can ‘deal’ with managements of these institutions later.
The government is keen on starting Eamcet engineering counselling from August 27, as per the tentative schedule it had submitted to the High Court on Thursday.