Delhi Public School Slashes Fee By 50% to Escape Imprisonment

We all have been hearing about the protests and the rallies that are often organized in order to get the fee reduced in private schools but hardly there is any benefit of such protests. Lately, one of the most reputed and well known school i.e. Delhi Public School, Mahendra Hills, Hyderabad has reduced its fee by more than 50 per cent from the next academic year.

Although this act sounds good and benefitting but the reality is that it is not an act of philanthropy. The school has announced this because it has been found guilty in a case that was going on between Delhi Public School, Mahendra Hills, Hyderabad and the State Education Department. It has been found that the school has been charging the students exorbitant fees unnecessarily. As a punishment, a three year jail term has been imposed onto them for non compliance of the norms. Resultantly, the management decided to restructure its fee by reducing it to half in order to get the case against them dropped. Earlier, the school was charging Rs. 1.22 lakh for pre-primary, but has now proposed to levy Rs 57,000 for the section from 2019-20 academic years. During the investigation by the State Education Board it was found that the management was not paying the salaries of the teachers as per the GO MS 1 but was charging a generalized tuition fee that includes other components also like fees for different extracurricular activities. When a notice of violation reached the school authorities, they decided to slash their fees by 50%. This reduction of fees shall only be applicable to the Mahendra Hills branch of the DPS. The department is alert and ready to scrutinize the audit books of other schools also. Although the school has proposed to reduce its fee in order to escape the three years imprisonment but Vijay Gopal, founder of Forum Against Corruption believes that by law anyone who is found guilty of such an offence is liable for three years of imprisonment. Alongside, the school also admitted that they have charged fees for other activities like skating also. When a question was raised to them regarding donation, they absolutely had no reply and resultantly proposed to cut down their fee. Indeed, such schools should not be forgiven. Law is not biased and everyone is equal in the eyes of law, hence the imprisonment of three years should necessarily be imposed upon the school authorities. This shall definitely act as an example for other schools also.

By: Anuja Arora

Content: http://www.newindianexpress.com/cities/hyderabad/2018/dec/15/slapped-with-3-year-jail-term-dps-slashes-fee-by-over-50-1911784.html