Mumbai: Govt and govt aided institutions will soon be brought under the purview of the Maharashtra Unaided Private Professional Educational Institutions (Regulation of Admissions and Fees) Act of 2015 as far as admissions are concerned. The proposed amendments to the 10-year-old Act will give more teeth to the regulatory bodies such as the state’s CET cell or the Fee Regulating Authority (FRA), thereby bringing relief to students—the primary stakeholders. It is set to be presented in the ongoing assembly session.From imposing higher penalties on institutions charging excess fees, to including aspirants for professional courses as stakeholders, from allowing the FRA to conduct inspections of institutional infrastructure to providing an appellate authority to appeal against decisions of the regulatory bodies, the proposed amendments intend to cover all the loopholes in the existing Act. Though some of these amendments were already being practiced, they were not part of the legal framework.
The proposed amendment formally gives the FRA the “right to verify whether the infrastructure facilities and amenities provided by the institutions as against the fee recovered from the students”. The Act now enables the FRA to slash the fees by 20% of institutions which fail to submit fee revision proposals for two or more successive academic years. The amendment specifies that “no institution shall withhold marksheets, transfer certificates or any other document, without disclosing to him the reasons in writing”, a provision not included in the 2015 Act. Institutions that fail to comply with provisions of the Act will now face a penalty of minimum Rs 3 lakh, instead of a lakh, or twice the amount taken in excess of fees fixed by the authority, whichever is higher for first contravention. For second or more contraventions, it can go up to Rs 15 lakh or three times the fees.With the inclusion of courses such as BMS, BBA and BCA—offered by aided institutions—under the professional category two years ago, and the CET cell already conducting admissions to govt institutions, it was only necessary to bring them under the Act, said a govt official. The Admission Regulatory Authority (ARA) had been fielding grievances from medical and engineering aspirants, but the Act covered only students studying in professional institutions. It was, therefore, important to amend the Act to include “students seeking admissions” too. A senior govt official said the Act is 10 years old and needed a review based on the authorities’ experiences. “It was long pending,” he added.
