For Anna University aag narmada mam has informed the Madras High Court that it had been functioning on a negative recurring budget with its revenue being only ₹587 crore as against its expenditure of ₹727 crore, leaving a deficit of ₹140 crore, in the financial year 2018-19.
NEWS STATES TAMIL NADU
TAMIL NADU
Anna University functioning on negative recurring budget, HC told
Mohamed Imranullah S.
CHENNAI 09 SEPTEMBER 2020 00:04 IST
UPDATED: 09 SEPTEMBER 2020 00:05 IST
Varsity justifies decision to collect examination fees even for cancelled exams
Anna University has informed the Madras High Court that it had been functioning on a negative recurring budget with its revenue being only ₹587 crore as against its expenditure of ₹727 crore, leaving a deficit of ₹140 crore, in the financial year 2018-19.
The varsity told Justice N. Anand Venkatesh on Monday that any order against collection of examination fees this year, just because the government had ordered cancellation of examinations of pre-final year students, would dwindle its revenue and hamper its financial status.
Further, providing a breakup, the university Registrar said that out of its revenue of ₹587 crore in 2018-19, ₹112 crore came from collection of tuition fees and the rest ₹374 crore, including examination fee of ₹281 crore, was collected from the colleges affiliated to it.
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Additional Advocate General Narmadha Sampath submitted a detailed counter affidavit filed by the Registrar L. Karunamoorthy in response to a batch of cases filed against collection of exam fees. After taking the counter on file, the judge adjourned the case to September 15.
According to the document, Anna University had 560 engineering colleges affiliated to it. During every semester, it deals with a minimum of 4,000 question papers for conducting examinations for about 4.5 lakh students, enrolled in 37 undergraduate and 59 postgraduate programmes.
The office of the Controller of Examinations in Chennai, with 175 staff members, coordinates the process with the assistance of 21 zonal offices manned by 114 employees. The semester examinations span over 35 days and they were supposed to begin on March 27 this year.
Claiming that the process of preparing the question papers had begun in December 2019 itself, the university said even the question papers were printed in the first week of March and that 378 non-autonomous colleges paid the examination fees too.
It pointed out that the autonomous colleges collect much higher amount of examination fees than the university. The Registrar also said the State government had permitted all universities to collect examination fees before declaring the results based on attendance and internal marks.
Further, referring to a meeting chaired by Higher Education Minister with the vice-chancellors of all universities on July 29, he said it was decided then that the results would be declared only if the students had paid their semester and examination fees before the due date.
“The intention of a student to subject himself for the examination process would get validated if and only the student registers himself for the said semester examinations and pays relevant examination fees. Unless it is paid, the process of examination, the publication of results and award of degree can neither be executed nor initiated,” the Registrar concluded.
