"There is a proposal to hike the fee. But the final decision will come from the government," Prof Surendra Prasad, Director of IIT Delhi, said.

The students in all the seven IITs are now paying Rs 25,000 per annum as fees. It could be increased upto Rs 50,000, he said.

"All our needs are met by the government. But increasing the fee would help us strengthen our economic health," he said.

The proposed fee structure, once accepted, will be implemented in the seven IITs. Over 4,000 students take admission to courses in the IITs at Kharagpur, Mumbai, Chennai, Delhi, Kanpur, Guwahati and Roorkee every year.

The move to hike the fee comes a few days after the IIMs decided to increase their fees for their two-year post-graduate programmes.

While IIM Ahmedabad has decided to increase the fee from the current Rs 5 lakh for both the years of the course to Rs 11.5 lakh, IIM Bangalore would increase its fee to Rs 9 lakh from Rs 5 lakh.

IIM Kolkata has similarly decided to increase the fee to Rs 6 lakh for the entire course from Rs 3.75 lakh at present. IIM Kozhikode has decided to increase the fee to Rs 6 lakh for the two-year programme from Rs 3.85 lakh at present.