Students of the Allahabad University on Monday continued their protest against the administration’s decision to increase fees for various courses in the 2022-’23 academic year, videos on social media showed.
The students have been protesting against the fee hike for over a week. On September 15, they carried flaming torches and shouted slogans against the officials. A group of students under the banner of Chhatrasangh Sanyukt Sangharsh Samiti has claimed that the fee for undergraduate courses have been hiked by almost 400%, NDTV reported.
The executive council, the top-most decision-making body of Allahabad University, approved a proposal to increase fees on August 31.
“The fee per month at AU for the past 110 years has been Rs 12,” Vice Chancellor Sangita Srivastava had said while justifying the decision, the Hindustan Times reported. “In order to pay running costs of electricity bills and other maintenance, the fee was due to be enhanced for the past number of years. The private institutions are now the major players and they charge exorbitant fees.”
At Monday’s protest against the fee hike, a member of National Students’ Union of India Adarsh Badhuria tried to immolate himself, The Times of India reported.
The protesters have vowed to continue the demonstrations till their demands are met.
On September 12, Congress leader Priyanka Gandhi Vadra had said that students from Uttar Pradesh and Bihar, whose families have modest earnings, study at the university. “By increasing the fees, the government will take away a major source of education from these youths,” she wrote in a tweet.
She urged the Adityanath-led Bharatiya Janata Party government to immediately revoke the “anti-youth” decision.
Samajwadi Party chief Akhilesh Yadav also expressed his support for the protestors.
“Be it the continuous fast being observed by students for past 783 days to demand reinstatement of the student union in Allahabad University or the ‘Chhatra Jan Chhatra Jan Aakrosh Morcha’, which was taken out in the university campus in support of students sitting on fast unto death for past seven days against 400% fee hike, they are symbol of hopelessness from the BJP government,” he wrote on Twitter.
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