Sixth pay commission: LU Finance Committee approves fee hike

Sixth pay commission: LU Finance Committee approves fee hike

LUCKNOW: The Finance Committee (FC) of the Lucknow University, on Sunday, approved the annual budget for 2009-10, which includes fee hike from next
session. Two committees have been formed to draft course-wise increase in the fees for self-finance and traditional disciplines.

The FC accepted the proposal which recommended fee hike of 20-50% in self-finance courses and 100% hike in the traditional courses like BA, BSc, BCom, MA, MSc and MCom. The committees are likely to submit their reports in the first week of January. The hike in popular self-finance management courses will be 50%, which will make the fees from Rs 25,000 per semester at present to Rs 37,000 per semester. In other self-finance courses, the hike would be between 20-30%. The fees in traditional courses, at present between Rs 1200-2500 per annum, are likely to be doubled in the new structure.

However, the major burden will come on the students of self-finance courses. The decision to hike the fees has been taken to meet the financial burden because of the deficit and increase in salaries of teaching and non-teaching staff after implementation of the sixth pay commission report. The university has also written to the government asking for increase in grants to meet the expenses required for increasing salaries of non-teaching staff. LU expects to generate Rs 5-6 crore per annum from fee hike, but it will still need additional Rs 5-6 crore to meet the deficit of Rs 10 crore.

In the annual financial statement (budget), university has shown its expenses for 2009-10 to be around Rs 76.51 crore, which include Rs 50 crore for the salaries of teaching and non-teaching staff and Rs 26.51 crore for repair, construction, labs, classrooms and various academic activities. On the revenue side, LU has shown Rs 24.80 crore as grants from the government for salaries and development, over Rs 25 crore from fees, around Rs 9 crore from University Grants Commission to implement the sixth pay commission for teachers and around Rs 10 crore as grants and aids from other sources.

The major concern for the university, however, is that the state government has fixed grants for salaries to the levels of 1998-99. After implementation of the sixth pay commission, university will require at least Rs 3-4 crore extra for the non-teaching staff and Rs 9 crore for the teaching staff. The UGC will provide 80% of the hike for teachers for five years, thereafter university will have to manage on its own. "If the state government does not increase grants for salaries, we will be forced to hike fees, at least by four times after five years," said a senior officer.

Source: http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com