All private and unaided schools in Delhi, regardless of the nature of their land ownership, will now be required to obtain prior approval from the government before raising fees, education minister Ashish Sood announced on Thursday.

Previously, only around 350 schools built on government-allotted land were mandated to seek such permission. The newly introduced Delhi School Education (Transparency in Fixation and Regulation of Fees) Bill, 2025 will extend this regulation to all private schools across the capital.

“This bill is not just a formality. It is a promise to parents that fee structures will no longer be manipulated at will,” said Sood, describing the legislation as a major step toward curbing arbitrary fee hikes and improving transparency in the education system.

According to official data, the existing framework—largely based on the Delhi School Education Act and Rules, 1973 and various court judgments—covered only a limited number of schools. Approximately 1,443 private institutions, mostly built on private land or government land without fee regulation clauses, have remained outside the purview of oversight for years.

The Department of Education (DoE) had previously declared fee hikes for the 2020–21 academic session invalid through an order dated 8 June 2022. Schools were directed not to charge increased fees for the 2020–21 and 2021–22 sessions, but many reportedly ignored or challenged this directive.

Post-pandemic, fee hike approvals were granted to 227 schools, and in 2023–24, only 28 of the 262 submitted proposals were formally reviewed. “Such a casual approach allowed schools to raise fees without scrutiny,” the DoE observed, adding that several schools had secured court orders to bypass government circulars.

However, the bill has drawn criticism from the opposition. AAP’s Delhi state president, Saurabh Bharadwaj, accused the government of misleading the public. “This bill is a diversion. It’s designed to shield over 350 private schools from High Court and Supreme Court rulings that already required fee hike approvals,” he claimed.

Bharadwaj argued that existing laws and court mandates already enforced fee regulation, and that the new bill attempts to dilute these protections.

The bill was formally introduced in the Delhi Assembly on Monday and is expected to undergo further debate in the coming weeks.

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