No More Unchecked Fee Hikes? New Delhi Bill Could Change the Rules For Every School

Delhi’s new bill could regulate fees for all schools, both private and government, ending years of unchecked hikes. However, it is unlikely to enforce a rollback of fees already hiked.

The Delhi government plans to bring all schools under a fee regulation rule.

Source : ABPLIVE AI

Parents across Delhi could soon get long-awaited relief from steep and sudden school fee hikes. The Delhi government has introduced a bill that, once passed, will extend fee regulation rules to all government and private schools and not just the select few that fall under the Delhi Development Authority (DDA) land clause.

Education Minister Ashish Sood, speaking on the sidelines of the Monsoon Session of the Delhi Assembly on Thursday, said the Delhi School Education (Transparency in Fixation and Regulation of Fees) Bill, 2025 is expected to be cleared on Friday. The biggest shift, he said, will be its "equitable applicability", ending what he called "a decade of unchecked profiteering" by private institutions.

Under current rules, the Directorate of Education (DoE) can only monitor and approve fee hikes in around 350 schools built on subsidised DDA land. These schools must submit proposed fee revisions online for review. But with over 1,400 schools in the Capital, that leaves hundreds of smaller private institutions free to raise fees without oversight.

Sood said the gap has hurt parents in less prominent areas just as much as those in elite schools. "If a small private school in Najafgarh increases its annual fee from ₹1,000 to ₹1,500, that's a 50% hike. For many parents, that's a crushing jump, but they rarely complain," he said.

The proposed law would change that. Once passed, every school would come under the same transparent, proactive monitoring system. It also introduces measures that weren't part of the earlier framework — mandatory audits of school accounts, a three-tier regulatory structure, stronger parent committees, strict penalties, and public disclosure of fee data.

The bill, however, has drawn criticism fromthe Opposition. AAP's Delhi president Saurabh Bharadwaj accused Sood of “misleading parents” and claimed the law's real purpose was to shield private schools from court rulings and legitimise past unapproved hikes.

School representatives, meanwhile, stress that fee increases are often unavoidable. Asha Prabhakar, chairperson of the National Progressive Schools' Conference, was quoted as saying by Hindustan Times that rising operational costs — from teacher salaries to fuel prices — put unavoidable pressures on budgets.