TimesView The express purpose of the fee act is to curb charging of excess fee from students and parents, under any head or charging it directly or indirectly, to stop profiteering by the educational institutions. However, schools will have hike the fee some time to meet their expenses. The bottom line here is that the hike should be justified and necessitated due to increasing expenditure or necessary development work, not for big financial gain. CHANDIGARH: Three schools have hiked their fees beyond 8% in different classes in violation of the Punjab Regulation of Fee of Unaided Educational Institution Act 2016, according to the data received from the UT education department.The three are Chandigarh Baptist School, Sector 45, Shri Kulwant Rai Sarvhitkari Vidya Mandir School, Sector 43, and Playway Model (Smart) School, Sector 37. Chandigarh Baptist School has hiked fees between 10.77% and 13.09% starting from pre-nursery to Class XII. The other two have hiked fees in pre-nursery and kindergarten classes.Sarojini Masih, principal, Chandigarh Baptist School, said, “The school had not hiked fees beyond 4-5% in last two years. As per CBSE guidelines, the schools may increase fee in certain domains, which is why the fee hike seems higher this year.”K Kumar, director, playway school, said, “The intention was not to hike fees beyond 8%. It was due to rounding off that the fee for some classes went up by a few points in some classes and came below 8% for others.”Kamaldeep Singh, principal, Kulwant Rai school, said, “Some calculation is to be done. We have informed the education department. Our fee hike is not more than 4-5%.”The Punjab Regulation of Fee of Unaided Educational Institution Act 2016 was extended to UT Chandigarh on April 13, 2018. In September 2018, the UT education department had formed a regulatory committee under the Act to check hike in fees . The committee is headed by education secretary B L Sharma. In December 2018, the fee committee fined a Sector 27-based school for increasing fee by more than 8%.The Independent Schools Association had, however, raised a concern over the education department penalising schools for hiking fees last year as schools were informed about the implementation of the Act in November 2018. “The fee was hiked before beginning of the new session, so how could schools be penalised for it,” said a school head.

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