The Delhi government tabled a bill to regulate private school fee hikes on Monday — imposing strict penalties for an arbitrary increase in costs.
According to the Cabinet-approved ordinance, the Bill will impose strict penalties on schools that arbitrarily hike fees. For a first offence, schools will face fines ranging from Rs 1 lakh to Rs 5 lakh, with repeat violations attracting penalties between Rs 2 lakh and Rs 10 lakh. If the school fails to refund within the specified time, the fine doubles after 20 days, triples after 40 days, and continues to increase with every 20-day delay.
Repeated violations may lead to a ban on holding official positions in the school management and loss of the right to propose future fee revisions.
What are the key points of the Bill
The Bill aims to curb unjustified fee hikes by private unaided schools within Delhi. It seeks to ensure transparency and accountability through several fee fixation and revision measures.
- Private schools can only increase fees once in three years. They must propose a fee structure for a block of three academic years. This will be reviewed and approved by a regulatory committee by September 15 each term.
- It introduces a three-tier regulation and grievance system — starting with a committee comprising school management, principal, teachers, and parents, as well as an official nominee to approve fee proposals. A District Fee Appellate Committee would resolve disputes between parents and schools, while a Revision Committee would outline a binding decision in case of appeals against the District committee decisions.
- Schools much take several factors such as location, infrastructure, facilities, quality of education and maintenance cost into account while setting fees.
- Heavy penalties for violations (as mentioned above).
AAP warns Bill will ‘burn hole in parents’ pockets’
The Opposition Aam Aadmi Party has criticised the bill — contending that it was a ‘bonanza’ for private schools. AAP Delhi State President Saurabh Bharadwaj called it an assault on parents and warned that the law was tailor-made to “protect the education mafia”. He had also demanded answers from the Chief Minister and Education Minister about how arbitrary hikes would be rolled back and why audit mechanisms were deliberately erased.
“MLAs are alarmed. The very fears we had been now proving true. Until now, even under the 1973 law, if a single parent felt that fees had been unfairly hiked, they could file a complaint with the Director of Education. Now, that has been scrapped. Under the new law, you’ll need a minimum of 15% of parents to raise a complaint. In a school with 3,000 students, that means identifying 450 parents — a nearly impossible task. You’d have to gather their names, phone numbers, visit their homes, convince them, and collect their signatures — only then can a complaint be registered,” he had said on Saturday.
Bharadwaj also said that the new law did not have any provision for audits and flagged a now-removed land clause from the 1973 law to underscore his concerns. The former Delhi Minister said the newly introduced Bill had ‘diluted and moved’ previous stipulations that required schools given land by the government to secure prior approval from the Director of Education before hiking fees. The new law, he alleged, now left the decision with a school-controlled committee.
(With inputs from agencies)