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| Friday, June 27, 2008
Ponmudy plays down colleges’ refusal
to sign pact on seats
Chennai: While the government has ensured that all self-financing
engineering colleges will surrender at least 65 per cent of
their seats to the government quota, it has backed down on its
announcement that college managements will sign a pact on seat
allocation, and that it will be mandatory to collect first-year
fees through select nationalised banks.
On Thursday, Higher Education Minister K. Ponmudy downplayed
the college managements’ refusal to sign an agreement
on seat allocation with the government. “They do not want
to sign because the matter is sub judice. But what does it matter
whether they sign or not so long as they are willing to give
the seats? Students will still benefit,” he said.
On Tuesday, he announced that a settlement had been reached
after negotiations and a pact would be signed. On Wednesday,
the Consortium of Self-Financing Professional, Arts and Science
Colleges in Tamil Nadu agreed to the ratio, but refused to sign
the agreement.
Apart from the Association, 165 colleges agree to surrender
65 per cent of their seats to the government quota. In fact,
15 colleges have offered a higher percentage of seats to the
government quota, adding up to approximately 1000 more seats.
At least 25 new colleges still awaiting approval are expected
to add a total of 10,000 more seats to the pool of seats available
at counselling. There should be a good opportunity for most
of the 1.23 lakh applicants to get seats, he said.
On fee collection through banks, the government now says that
students will have the choice of paying the fees via banks or
directly to colleges. The original plan to make payment through
banks mandatory was drafted in response to allegations of excess
fee collection. The association objected to it, claiming that
some students would not be in a position to pay their fees immediately
after counselling and would find it difficult to approach banks
for loans before receiving their admission order.
The Minister said instead of making it mandatory, students would
be given the option of paying into a bank account, either in
Chennai or from their own hometowns, or directly to colleges.
Courtesy: The Hindu
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