New Delhi: JNU Students’ Union office bearers had a meeting with HRD ministry officials on the hostel fee hike issue but no resolution was reached on the second consecutive day of talks Wednesday.
The HRD Ministry held a series of talks with the university administration and the students’ union and offered to remove the service and utility charges.
“There has been reportedly a draft in circulation regarding the talks between the JNUSU & MHRD. Talks are still going on. There has been no agreement yet. Everyone is advised not to be affected by rumours. We shall report as soon as there are further developments,” the JNUSU tweeted.
“Our movement will continue till our demands are met.#FeesMustFall” it said in another tweet.
Sources said the ministry stressed that all the stakeholders in JNU adopt a flexible approach in order to find a satisfactory solution, “and end the confrontationist situation prevailing in the campus since the last month or more.”
The ministry also emphasised that not only shall the campus return to normalcy “but a fool-proof system shall be put in place for non-recurrence of such issues in the future,” sources said.
They claimed that the university was also requested by the ministry to sympathetically consider and give a relaxation of two weeks to make up for the lost academic period.
The ministry also said that the university and its students must follow the high court’s directions for the notification of the students’ union, which has also been a contentious issue.
The institution has been seeing protests for over a month over the hostel fee hike issue and even though the university has twice offered rollbacks, the students have refused to accept them. Students have been occupying the administration block in protest and sources said they were asked to maintain discipline and hold no more dharnas around the administration block and around the residences of faculty members.
It was decided that the hostel fee which was revised from Rs 10 per month to Rs 300 per month (double room), and from Rs 20 per month to Rs 600 per month (single room) will be payable and BPL students will get 50 per cent concession.
It was decided in the meeting that the UGC will bear the cost of service and utility charges proposed till further orders, which will remove the clause of Rs 2,500 service charges from the hostel fees.
JNUSU general secretary Satish Chandra Yadav said they demanded that students who get JRF and SRF scholarships be given single-seater rooms, a norm which is followed by every other university.
“Students are given a single-seater room in JNU after two years. We said either they refund the HRA or ensure that norms are changed. We also said that the new hostel manual does not have provisions for reservation of students in hostels,” he said.
He also said the administration approached the Delhi High Court against the students but the court suggested that the administration try and talk to students to resolve the issue.
“We have always been open to dialogue but there has been no initiation of talks by the administration. Despite the high court’s orders, we have not been approached by them,” he said.
The JNUSU has called for a boycott of exams, beginning December 12 and will be going ahead with it.
Meanwhile, the university issued a circular to all deans and chairpersons of various centres and schools in the institution, saying that they have received representations from the foreign students regarding the problems faced by the casual and terminal students whose visa validity period is about to expire.
“In order to facilitate evaluation of their courses, it is only appropriate that an alternative evaluation process needs to be adopted,” the JNU said.
For example additional assignments/sessionals/term papers may be given to them in lieu of term-end semester examinations. “All the Deans of Schools and Chairpersons of the Special Centres are requested to ensure that the requirements of End-semester evaluation for the above category students are completed in time,” the university said.
PTI