Great Relief For Students as JNU Partially Rolls Back Fee Hike Amid Massive Protests
Mumbai: Amid the protests in Jawaharlal Nehru University (JNU) over the hostel fee hike, the Ministry of Human Resource Development on Wednesday tweeted that the draft hostel manual had been partially rolled back.
The decision was taken by the Executive Council of the university, which is the highest decision-making body.
However, three professors who are elected members of the Council alleged that they were prevented from attending a meeting by the administration through a “deliberate last-minute change of venue.”
“The JNU Executive Committee announces major roll-back in the hostel fee and other stipulations. Also proposes a scheme for economic assistance to the Economically Weaker Section (EWS) students,” Education Secretary R Subrahmanyam in the Ministry of Human Resource Development, said in a tweet.
The development comes after the students of the university earlier in the day staged a protest against the Vice-Chancellor M Jagadesh Kumar outside JNU convention centre over the fee hike.
“There is no rollback. A substantial portion of the hike is still there. But what is a bigger cause of concern is that we were deliberately prevented from attending the Council meeting,” Baviskar said.
However, when professors Sachidananda Sinha, Sharad Baviskar and Moushumi Basu, along with five deans who are also members of the council, reached the venue in the morning, there was no sign of a meeting.
“We want to hold a discussion with the VC on the issue of fee hike and new hostel manual. He is not responding to us and has not even met us once,” Aishee Ghosh, president Jawaharlal Nehru University Students’ Union (JNUSU) told ANI.
“It is extremely bad on the behalf of the admin to hike the fees. It would be difficult for economically backward students to complete their education this way. People here belong to different economic backgrounds,” another protester told ANI.
Baviskar added that the announcement of a rollback that came via Twitter was only meant to take the steam out of the students’ protests.
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