The cash-strapped Himachal Pradesh University’s efforts to hike fee to counter funding gaps has hit a wall. For, the student community is up in arms, forcing the authorities to defer the proposed move.
Protesting students threatened to disturb peace on the campus on Saturday but the police brought the condition under control. Students boycotted classes and had even, obstructed administrative and academic staff from performing their duties.
Where students claimed that police had resorted to a cane charge, the police denied having done so. “Only mild force was used,” said a police spokesman. After holding a meeting of the resource mobilisation committee, Vice-Chancellor ADN Bajpai’s office, later issued a statement that the committee had decided to defer the fee hike decision.
Before announcing the proposed hike, the communiqué stated that fee structure of school education board and that prevailing in neighbouring States would be considered.
Bajpai whose three years term ended on May 24 has been given a six months extension by Governor Urmila Singh, who is also the Chancellor of State university. Before his term in office was extended, the Vice-Chancellor at a press conference had disclosed, “the university requires over
Rs 110 crore annually to meet its budgetary requirements but it has only got Rs 69 crore as grants from the State Government for the financial year. After adding up the internal resources, which includes the fees paid by students, the annual shortfall is between Rs 10 crore to Rs 15 crore.”
About the challenges facing the university, he had said that resource mobilisation was the biggest one. “The university has successfully secured many research projects but students’ fee hike is the major resource that can mobilise resources for meeting budgetary needs of the institution,” he said.