Engineering students can now cancel admissions, get refund of fees

HYDERABAD: Beginning this academic year, students signing up for BTech or MTech courses can withdraw their admission before the start of the session, without much trouble. Reason: AICTE guidelines for 2017-18. Keeping with the new norms, the Telangana department of technical education has directed all colleges to return the original certificates of students and refund the fee without any hassle.

"There have been cases in the past wherein college managements have retained students' original certificates and refused to refund the fee amount for those wanting to withdraw their admission before the start of the course. Many even urged students to cough up the fee for all four years before leaving. However, now students can withdraw their admission and not worry about the refund of fee or original certificates," said N Yadaiah, registrar, Jawaharlal Nehru Technological University, which has taken cognisance of the directives and directed all colleges to strictly follow the AICTE guidelines.

As per the instructions issued by the DTE, "institutions should not demand



fee for the subsequent years from the students who cancel their admissions at any point of time". As per the AICTE approval handbook for 2017-18, in the event of a student withdrawing admission before starting of the course, the entire fee collected from the student, after a deduction of the processing fee of not more than Rs 1,000, the institution will refund the entire amount.

The DTE further stated that if any student approaches the department then the case will further referred to the university concerned and AICTE for taking necessary action in the matter.

However, Yadaiah pointed out that students can only withdraw admission and seek admission in another college, based on the availability of seats. "Students can only change college and branch during the counselling process. Once the academic calendar commences, students cannot make changes," he added. While college managements have raised concerns over the vacant seat — once a student withdraws his/her admission — AICTE has stated that the seat must be subsequently filled by another student.