Mumbai: The Fee Regulatory Authority (FRA) has issued notices to 450 colleges across Maharashtra for failing to publish their approved fee structure on their official websites. Action will now be initiated against these institutions.Every professional college in the state is required to display its approved fee structure on its website — in Marathi, English, and, in the case of minority institutions, also in the respective minority language. However, several colleges were found to be collecting large sums from students over and above the FRA-approved fees, without publishing the mandated information.“Twenty-nine colleges have not submitted any response. Others have presented their explanations. The authority will now take a final decision, after which action will be initiated as per its decision,” said officials.The FRA instructed all colleges to publish their fees online and sent official communication to them on June 20. Yet, many colleges ignored the directive. The FRA subsequently inspected the websites of 628 colleges and found that only 103 had displayed their fee details. As many as 450 colleges had not disclosed their fees at all, while 75 had failed to display other required fee components.“For two years, we’ve been raising complaints that colleges are not publishing fees on their websites, and we even provided evidence,” said Subhash Athawale, General Secretary of MUCTA, a teachers’ association. “Because of the delay in action, colleges have been exploiting students and the govt — charging students directly while also collecting reimbursements under various concession categories. There must now be a fixed timeframe for acting on such complaints.” The FRA issued notices asking these colleges to explain why action should not be taken against them and to submit their responses.
