From 31% to 68%, approvals to fee hike proposals by private unaided schools in Delhi rose sharply in 8 years: Govt data

Under the Delhi School Education Act and Rules (DSEAR), 1973, private unaided schools operating on government-allotted land need prior approval before increasing fees. In 2016-17, the DoE received 168 such proposals, of which 69.07 per cent were rejected and 30.92 per cent approved. By 2022-23, this trend had reversed, with approval rates climbing to 63.87 per cent, and rejection rates dropping to 36.12 per cent.

Between 2017-18 and 2018-19, rejection rates stayed above 74 per cent. The turning point came in 2019-20, when approvals outnumbered rejections for the first time. After a two-year gap during the 2020-2022 period, amid the COVID-19 pandemic when schools were not allowed to increase fees, in 2023-24, 262 proposals were submitted, but only 28 were decided. Of these, 67.85 per cent were approved.

“The government failed to decide the proposals so submitted… in a time-bound manner, which allowed schools to increase fees unchecked,” a statement from Delhi Education Minister Ashish Sood’s office stated, blaming the previous Aam Aadmi Party (AAP) government. It also noted that “many schools have increased the fees even when their fee hike orders were rejected. Delhi Public School, Dwarka and Rohini are glaring examples… All these schools in Delhi have turned into a horse without a saddle increasing their fee by their own will.”

BJP government in Delhi slams alleged absence of oversight

A statement from Delhi Education Minister Ashish Sood’s office alleged that while private unaided schools operating on government-allotted land were at least partially monitored, around 1,443 other schools on private land or those on government land without a ‘fee-approval clause’ had not been regulated at all. This meant that more than 80 per cent of Delhi’s private unaided schools faced no systematic oversight of fee increases during the past decade, the statement said.

“They did not audit their statements of fee or returns filed with DoE except for a few schools…,” it said. The absence of oversight, the note said, allowed schools to raise fees without verifying whether collections matched educational expenditure.

The BJP government also pointed to legal developments that it said weakened the DoE’s powers. In March 2019, the Delhi High Court ruled that prior approval was not mandatory for unaided private schools to increase their fees. In November 2023, the AAP government proposed linking permissible fee hikes to the Consumer Price Index (CPI), but “due to administrative inaction and lack of follow-through… the matter remained unproductive and no decision was taken until February 2025,” a government source said. In April 2024, the high court stayed a DoE circular inviting fee proposals.

According to the Delhi government, the existing DSEAR framework is ineffective as it relies on extreme measures such as withdrawal of recognition and lacks strong penalties for non-compliance, mandatory audited account submissions, empowered parent representation, and public disclosure of violators. While parent-teacher associations existed, their role in fee regulation was minimal and often symbolic, it claimed.

A Bill that aims to bring in transparency in fixing fees

On August 4, the Delhi School Education (Transparency in Fixation and Regulation of Fees) Bill, 2025, was tabled in the Delhi Assembly, but AAP MLAs led by Leader of the Opposition Atishi staged protests and walked out.

According to the Delhi government, the Bill proposes replacing the single-layer DoE clearance process with a three-tier structure:

* A school-level fee regulation committee with five parent representatives and three teacher representatives chosen through a transparent draw of lots supervised by an independent DoE observer, with affirmative representation for women and disadvantaged groups

* A district fee appellate committee serving as a fast-track appeal body for parents and schools

* A revision committee acting as the final authority

Other provisions include mandatory submission of audited financial statements with every proposal, the right for at least 15 per cent of parents in a class or school to jointly appeal a hike, strict penalties for unauthorised fee collection, including refunds with interest within 20 working days, escalating fines for repeat offences, and possible de-recognition of schools. The Bill also calls for public naming of penalised schools and disclosure of violations.

Framing the Bill as a corrective to what it described as “an era of arbitrary fee hikes and financial opaqueness,” the government said, “Parents have suffered under an opaque system. This Bill ends arbitrary fee hikes and puts transparency first.”

The AAP has alleged the Bill was designed to benefit private school owners, had been deliberately delayed to allow fee hikes, and lacked provisions to roll back the 2025-26 increases. The party also demanded that the Bill be sent to a select committee for public consultation and that all school fees be frozen at the previous academic year’s levels.