“Students admitted in government and government-aided autonomous engineering institutes has to pay fees of library, gymkhana and educational facilities other that tution fees. As students did not use these facilities as they were not present physically due covid lockdown, so they will be not charged for the same,” Samant said in the press statement.

“Taking into consideration the ongoing pandemic situation and its backdrop students and parents are facing, it has been decided  to give a discount of ₹16,250 to students,” he said.

The amount will be deducted from the fees that student will be charged for academic year 2021-22. Around 20,000 students across the state will be benefited , the minister announced.

Announced late Thursday evening, the decision came after a meeting between Samant, the principal secretary of the department of higher and technical education, the director of the Directorate of Technical Education (DTE) and college professors.

For the past year, several student groups have made similar demands from the University of Mumbai as well, asking the varsity to direct all affiliated institutes to not charge fees for facilities not used by students in over a year. The University instructed colleges to follow this rule in 2020-21 but for the new academic year, no such statement has been released by the authorities yet.