New Delhi, April 30: Education minister Arjun Singh today approved a hike in tuition fees at the Indian Institutes of Technology from this year, nearly doubling the amount that students entering the institutes will have to pay.

Fresh students at each of the seven existing IITs and the three new institutes — in Rajasthan, Andhra Pradesh and Bihar — will be charged Rs 25,000 per semester when they join this year.

The bureaucracy — including higher education secretary R.P. Agrawal — had cleared the proposal earlier, but had not received the crucial approval required from Arjun to officially sanction the hike. Arjun, it is learnt, has been weighing the political ramifications of a fee hike in the IITs in the lead-up to a slew of state elections and the 2009 general election.

The IITs are likely to be sent an official notification informing them of the minister’s approval before the end of the week, human resource development ministry sources said.

Arjun, it is learnt, has however asked all the IITs to ensure that students already studying at the institutes are not asked to pay more, in his notes alongside the approval.

The approval from the minister comes just a month after the six Indian Institutes of Management announced a hike in their fees. Despite opposition from Arjun, most of the IIMs refused to withdraw the announced increase.

The prized BTech or undergraduate engineering course at the IITs will cost a student Rs 2 lakh over eight semesters — two a year — in tuition fees, apart from the amount required for hostel accommodation.

The four-year undergraduate course costs Rs 1.08 lakh in tuition fees at present. The corresponding fees for postgraduate students will go up from Rs 54,000 to Rs 1 lakh.

Unlike the IIMs, which have been raising fees almost every year, the IITs last raised their fees in 1998.

In 2005, the IITs first complained to the ministry about dwindling funds and then sought a raise in fees.

Earlier this year, Dr C.N.R. Rao, chairman of the Prime Minister’s Scientific Advisory Council, approved the proposed hike. Rao is a key member of the standing committee of the IIT council — which also consists of IIT directors — and chairs the body’s meetings when its chairman, Arjun, is unable to attend.