Panjab University proposes 5% fee hike for 2015-16
CHANDIGARH: A Panjab University (PU) committee has proposed a five per cent increase in tuition fee for students enrolled at the university’s teaching departments, institutes, and regional centres. The proposal to increase the fees across-the-board comes with a lower limit of Rs500, and an upper limit of Rs2,000, with some self-financed courses already being too heavy on the students’ pockets. However, the proposal will have to go through the PU senate and syndicate, which will finalize the fee structure that will come into effect in 2015-16.
The committee was constituted by PU’s vice-chancellor Arun Kumar Grover. Members of the Panjab University Campus Students Council (PUCSC) have opposed the fee hike and proposed relaxing the upper limit at the meeting attended by PU’s dean university instruction AK Bhandari, registrar Col (retd) GS Chadha, deans of students’ welfare Navdeep Goyal and Nandita Singh, besides other committee members.
“The council has offered the university to use amalgamated funds allotted for the council and reduce the proposed hike in the interest of students. We have proposed that we can get our own sponsors for events of the council, and the upper limit should be brought down so that students with a higher fee structure don’t have to suffer,” said PUCSC president Divyanshu Budhiraja. “We are surely not in favour of this fee hike and will try to push to keep it to the minimum possible,” the council president added. PUCSC’s general secretary Ankur Sehrawat also attended the meeting on behalf of the council.
A committee member, present at Tuesday’s meeting, said that the proposal of the student council has been considered and it will be sent along with the minutes of the meeting to the syndicate for its approval, after which a final decision will be taken. “This is what the committee has proposed and the final decision rests with the syndicate,” said the PU fellow, adding that funds collected from the fee hike will go towards helping students from economically weaker sections.
