The schools were charging Rs 185 and 195 per month for students -- of class one to seven -- studying in the Gujarati and English mediums respectively, before the society increased its monthly fees.

Parents, who were for the past ten days protesting peacefully for the scrapping of the fee hike, told the DEO that they had submitted a letter of protest to the school authorities on June 19, who in turn had asked them for a week's time to consider the demand.

The parents added though they agreed to the proposal, keeping in mind the interests of the children, no action had been initiated by the school authorities. Instead, the school management locked the schools put up a notice stating that teaching had been suspended, they added.

Listing out their demands before the collector and the DEO, the agitating parents said that a fixed fee be levied at the rate of Rs 110 per month -- so that the management produce accounts in the DEO office periodically -- return all the extra fees that has been collected from the parents without obtaining the required permission from the DEO and scrap the donation system.

The DEO is reported to have assured the parents that he would check the accounts of the schools, which according to the parents had not been maintained for the past three years, where there have been consecutive fee hikes.

The parents submitted the memoranda with the backing of the `Vaalimandal', an organisation formed with the sole aim of protesting against fee hikes in schools.