NEW DELHI: The ministry of human resource development has asked the Indian Institutes of Technology (IITs) and Indian Institutes of Information Technology (IIITs) not to increase their tuition fees for the forthcoming academic session. Even the IIITs managed through private-public partnership are being advised not to hike fee this year. The government is also likely to announce similar measures for the other centrally funded institutions for the 2020-21 academic year.Following consultation with the chairperson, standing committee of the IIT council and directors of the IITs a decision was arrived at not to increase the tuition fee.Union minister for HRD, Ramesh Pokhriyal told TOI, “I am pleased to announce that our IITs are not increasing tuition fee for academic year 2020-21 for any of their courses. The decision was taken after consultation with chairperson, Standing Committee of IIT Council and directors of IITs.”The minister also said that a similar decision was taken after deliberation with the chairperson, standing committee of IIIT council and coordination forum for the undergraduate programmes. The IIITs have decided not to implement the standard hike of 10% in tuition fee for undergraduate programmes this year.“I have also requested IIITs (public private partnership mode) for not increasing tuition fee for coming academic year for any of their courses,” added Pokhriyal.The government is also likely to advise the National Institutes of Technology (NITs) and other non-technical centrally funded universities and institutions to take up similar measures following the Covid-19 outbreak and subsequent nationwide lockdown.