Following the orders of the Fee Regulatory Committee (Technical), 29 technical institutes have been penalised Wednesday with a fine ranging from Rs 1.55 lakh to Rs 20 lakh for charging excess amount as fee from students. Besides, nine institutes have returned an amount of Rs 1.19 crore to 2,074 students which they had deposited as caution money or a deposit. Among these nine institutes, two are run by former Gujarat Chief Minister Shankarsinh Vaghela. As many as 876 students enrolled in Shankarsinh Vaghela Bapu Institute of Technology, Gandhinagar and 241 students got admitted in Shankarsinh Vaghela Bapu Institute Technical Campus, Gandhinagar. While the former institute returned Rs 43.80 lakh, the latter gave back Rs 12.05 lakh taken for its degree engineering and diploma engineering courses. The other six colleges that have returned the excess fee are one institute under A-One Pharmacy College Enasan in Ahmedabad district and six under the group of Veerayatan Institutes in Kutch. Earlier this year, on the committee’s orders, a total of Rs 1.05 crore were returned to 1,613 students. “The FRC (Technical) has successfully acted on two parts - returning money to students and imposing a fine on institutes violating its orders. Thus, when brought to the notice of the committee, these were penalised after issuing them repeated orders, directions and notices and personal hearing,” said FRC (Technical) member Kamlesh Joshipura. For the remaining institutes, those which have either not submitted the declaration or undertaking but have applied for a personal hearing, a decision will soon be taken after hearing them, he added. The Fee Regulatory Committee (Technical) was formed under Section 9 (1) of the Gujarat Professional Technical Educational Colleges or Institutes (Regulation of Admission and Fixation of Fees), Act, 2007.
