We have borrowed heavily to pay salaries to staff
‘We have borrowed heavily to pay salaries to staff’
Legal CorrespondentCHENNAI 03 JULY 2020 00:18 ISTUPDATED: 03 JULY 2020 00:18 IST
Private schools, colleges seek government nod to collect fees from students in instalments
The State government on Thursday told the Madras High Court that it had received representations from the Consortium of Self-Financing Professional, Arts and Science Colleges in Tamil Nadu as well as the All-India Private Educational Institutions’ Association on the issue of determining the fees that could be collected by them from school and college students.
Justices R. Subbiah and Krishnan Ramasamy were told by Advocate General (A-G) Vijay Narayan that representations had been received on the basis of orders passed by Justice R. Mahadevan early this week to find a solution to the issue by balancing the interests of parents who could not pay and institutions which had to disburse salaries to their staff.
The submission was made during the hearing of a public interest litigation petition which sought strict implementation of a government order (G.O.) passed in April this year, directing private educational institutions not to indulge in forcible collection of fees during the lockdown. The A-G told the court that colleges and schools had challenged the same G.O. before a single judge.Advertising
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Viable solution
During the hearing of those cases, Justice Mahadevan had directed the government to hear their grievances and come up with a viable solution such as permitting the institutions to collect fees in instalments. Accordingly, the associations had made their representations and the government would take a final call on the issue by Monday or Tuesday, he said.
In its representation, the consortium of self-financing colleges stated that its members had borrowed money heavily to pay salaries to teaching and non-teaching staff for the months of March, April, May and June. It said that colleges would be put to insurmountable difficulties if they were not allowed to collect fees now for the academic years 2019-20 and 2020-21.
It suggested that the government could allow self-financing schools to collect fees in three instalments and the self-financing colleges to collect fees in two instalments semester wise.
“Only the tuition fees fixed by the fees fixation committee will be collected by the institutions affiliated to the petitioner association and no other additional charges will be collected,” the consortium said.
On its part, the All Indian Private Educational Institutions’ Association sought permission to collect fees for the academic year 2020-21 in three equated instalments in the months of August, December and April. “Last year’s pending tuition fees can be collected from the parents without any hue and cry from the parents,” it added.
It also wanted the government to help them obtain a moratorium till December, without levying accumulated interest, for payment of Equated Monthly Instalments (EMI) for the loans availed by them from banks. Similarly, the EMIs to be paid for the school buses could also be postponed till December without interest, it said.
The Association also wanted the electricity tariff for the schools and colleges to be converted from commercial tariff to domestic tariff besides impressing upon the government to release the balance amount of money to be released to them under the Sarva Siksha Abhiyan scheme.
