Thiruvananthapuram, Saturday 04 July 2009: The State Government on Friday signed an accord with the self-financing engineering college management for admission in 2009-10 academic year.

Candidates admitted to government seats (50 per cent) in private self-financing engineering colleges will pay an annual fee of Rs.35,000.
In the management quota the maximum permissible fee will be Rs.90,000. If the managements charge Rs.75,000 or less, they can ask for a deposit (refundable) of up to Rs.1.5 lakh.

Though it is not specified in the agreement, the minimum fee for the management quota would be Rs.50,000. In the NRI quota (15 per cent) the fee would be Rs.1.5 lakh and a deposit of up to Rs.1.5 lakh would be charged.

An agreement to this effect was signed between the State government and the Association of Managements of Private Self-Financing Colleges, here on Friday night. Forty-three colleges would abide by this agreement.

While the Principal Secretary, Higher Education, Kurivila John signed the agreement for the government in the presence of Education Minister M.A. Baby, Association’s general secretary C.I. Abdul Rahiman signed on behalf of the colleges.

Ten per cent of government seats in colleges with minority status would be set aside for candidates from the management’s community and would be filled by the Commissioner for Entrance Examinations on the basis of inter-se merit. The government turned down the Association’s demand for a 65:35 seat split in the latter’s favour.

Admissions to the management quota in these colleges would be on the basis of a rank list prepared by giving 50:50 weightage to marks scored in the qualifying examination and in the entrance examination. The marks scored in CBSE, ICSE and the State higher secondary would be ‘normalised’ before the rank list for the management quota is prepared.