CHENNAI: The Consortium of Self-financing Professional, Arts and Science Colleges in Tamil Nadu has welcomed the Supreme Court judgment giving unaided professional institutions complete rights on admission of students.

"We wholeheartedly welcome the judgment. We would also submit to any legislation the Central and State Governments may pass in this regard. The judgment has ensured that no seat will go empty in self-financing professional institutions and has thus considerably reduced the financial losses we suffer each year owing to vacant seats,'' consortium president Jeppiar told reporters here on Friday.

"The State Government has been unable to fill its quota of seats in self-financing institutions since 1993. Last year alone, nearly 13,000 such seats remained vacant. Even if one seat went vacant, the institution would lose Rs. 1.5 lakh in fee per student a year. Though the fee structure has remained at the 1993 level, staff salaries have shot up, thus making it impossible to sustain ourselves if the Government quota were continued,'' he said. The Government should fix Rs. 54,000 as annual fees for a student, he added.

Member colleges of the consortium would be willing to give more seats to the Government quota if the latter gave an assurance that all the 50 per cent government seats (30 per cent in case of minority institutions) would be filled, failing which it either compensated for the loss of fees or undertook to pay staff salaries, Mr. Jeppiar said.

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