School charged much higher fee than allowed

BANGALORE: The east Bangalore school where a six-year-old girl was allegedly raped should have collected only up to Rs 30 per student per month as fee and Rs 600 as development fee per annum. But parents of students told TOI the fee collected for three years now started at Rs 70,000 per annum.
The school had obtained permission in 2007 to operate as a Kannada-medium school and got a Council for ICSE accreditation only on October 9, 2013.However, it pitched itself as an ICSE affiliate since inception and charged fees which were in violation of the state government cap on the tuition fee at teachers' salaries + 30%.
The school could have collected fees more than that stipulated by the state government only after October 9, 2013. But according to information with the director of primary education K Anand, the upper limit for fees has been Rs 1.85 lakh per annum for the past three years.
Another parent said that in a meeting after the alleged rape, the fee issue was discussed. He complained the school was not providing a break-up of the fee structure in the acknowledgement. The fees include tuition, books, bag, stationeries, etc. Parents have to pay for transport facility which depends on distance of child's home from the school.
Expertspeak
* It's the failure of the department of public instruction. It's not checking the affiliations of schools which are opening. The department has to inspect the facilities of all schools affiliated to any board. There are around 1,000 such schools which have violated rules. We've received numerous complaints that this school is also charging excess fees.
Nagasimha G Rao | convener, RTE Task Force
* This is not right. Schools must provide a break-up in the acknowledgement specifying how much is charged for what purpose.
K V Dhananjaya | Supreme Court lawyer and Karnataka Unaided Schools Managements' Association (KUSMA) counsel.