Panaji: After state govt during the diamond jubilee year of Goa’s Liberation introduced the scheme to subsidise fees for students pursuing engineering at one of the four private colleges in the state, 16,166 students have benefited under the scheme, govt data shows. During the six years from 2021 to 2026, state govt spent Rs 117 crore to fund the scheme.Under the scheme DJ-Gift (Diamond Jubilee Govt investment for technical education), a student pays a fixed amount notified by govt annually as the base fee, and the rest of the fee amount is paid by state.In the first year, 3,625 students benefited from the scheme with state govt shelling out Rs 11.5 crore to offer the fee concession to students.The idea behind the scheme is that any hike in fees of private engineering colleges should not be an impediment for students to join the institutes to pursue an engineering degree.The scheme allows parents to gauge and prepare for the exact amount of financial investment they will require to make over their child’s four years of engineering programme, as the state bears the rest of the fee amount.In 2022-23, state govt spent Rs 34 crore to subsidise the fee of 3,448 students.For engineering programmes at private colleges in Goa, the annual fees can go up to Rs 2 lakh per annum. In such circumstances, a student under the scheme pays Rs 1 lakh, and the balance was to be paid by state govt.In 2023-24, the state govt spent Rs 31.9 crore to subsidise the fees of 3,194 students.When govt introduced the DJ-Gift in 2021-22, there was no income limit for those who could avail of the fee subsidy. Subsequently, an income limit was introduced for those who could avail the scheme.The year 2024-25 saw state govt spend Rs 29.4 lakh to offer the concession to 2,987 students. In 2025-26, 2,915 students benefited from the scheme.Goa has five engineering colleges, of which four are private.Over the past few years, it was seen that seats at the govt-run Goa Engineering College at Farmagudi were filled to capacity, while hundreds of seats at the four private engineering colleges were going vacant. This prompted state govt to come up with the DJ-Gift scheme to remove the possible impediment of fees.
