At a time when students are busy preparing for their exams, first-year students from a city-based engineering institute are worried about not being allowed to appear for their examination. Reason? They had taken admission under the Maratha quota, which gave them huge discounts on fees and now the college has asked them to pay up the full amount.

“I got my daughter admitted to this college only because with our caste certificate I had to pay Rs 10,000 annually. Now, suddenly we are being asked to pay up the entire amount, which is above a lakh,” said the father of a first-year student studying at Vidyalankar Institute of Technology, Wadala.