ABVP stages protest at Osmania University against fee hike

ABVP members alleged that the state Universities are meant to provide quality education but this decision of the Universitu to hike fees leads to the commodification of education.

Members of Akhil Bharatiya Vidyarthi Parishad (ABVP) staged a protest against Osmania University's decision to hike various programmes. The protest was held in front of the administrative building of Osmania University and police had to be called to control them.

ABVP members alleged that the state Universities are meant to provide quality education but this decision of the University to hike fees leads to the commodification of education. A group of students gathered around the administrative building of the OU and alleged that the newly-appointed vice-chancellors boasted to deliver a lot, but have ended up imposing the government's agenda on students with manifold hikes in fees.

They further alleged that the fee of engineering, pharmacy and post-graduate courses in Osmania University, Mahatma Gandhi University and Jawaharlal Nehru Technological University, Hyderabad (JNTU-H) is clearly unjustified. As per the protestors, the fees for MA in Arts and Social Science regular courses have been increased from Rs 2,800 to Rs 14,000, and the fee for the self-finance courses have been increased from Rs 3,800 to Rs 21,000. Similarly, the fee for MCom regular has been fixed at Rs 30,000, MBA at Rs 35,000 and MSc science stream course fee has been increased from Rs 3,800 to Rs 20,490. The self-finance course fee in the same stream has gone up to Rs 35,000, they said.

In the engineering stream, the course fee has gone up from Rs 18,000 to Rs 35,000 and the self-finance fee to Rs 75,000. Course fee for BTech in Artificial Intelligence has been pegged at Rs 1.2 lakh. The protesting students also warned the authorities that they would intensify the agitation if the authorities failed to roll back the fee hike.

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