CBSE clarifies exam fee hike, says increase uniform across India

New Delhi, Aug 11: The Central Board of Secondary Education (CBSE) has hiked fee for Class 10 and 12 board examinations.

After uproar over hike in fee for SC-ST category of students, the CBSE said the fee increase was for all students across India, but earlier, Delhi government used to give subsidy to SC/ST students.

"It's clarified that the board has increased Board exams fee pan India and not especially for Delhi. This increase is after a gap of 5 years. The fee has been increased for all categories of students in all affiliated schools of CBSE in India and abroad. For all students in rest of the country, the fees used to be Rs. 750 which has been raised to Rs 1500. There is No Fees for the visually impaired students. As a special arrangement only for Delhi, fees earlier used to be Rs 350 for SC/ST students of Delhi," the CBSE statement said.

"Out of 350, SC/ST students paid only Rs 50 and rest Rs. 300 was reimbursed by Delhi Govt. General category students of Delhi were earlier paying Rs 750 like rest of India, and will now pay Rs 1500," statement added.

The exam fee for the general category, which was Rs 750 earlier, has been increased to Rs 1500. The board examinations for SC and ST students from Rs 50 to Rs 1,200.

This essentially means that the general category fee has been doubled but the fee has been hiked by 24 times.

The board notified the changes in the fees last week and has asked the schools who had already begun the registration process and charged students as per the old fee structure, to now collect the difference in amount.

According to the revised norms, the Scheduled Caste and Scheduled Tribe students will have to pay ₹1,200 for five subjects, while earlier they were supposed to pay ₹50 for the same, a hike of 24 times. The general category students who were paying ₹750 earlier, will now pay ₹1,500 for five subjects.