A CORRESPONDENT
AZARA: Amid continuing protests and road blockade programmes by various student organisations and the student community of Gauhati University over the alleged fee hike, the university authorities on Wednesday dismissed the allegations as baseless and factually incorrect.
Addressing a press conference held on Wednesday, Gauhati University Registrar Prof Dr Utpal Sarma stated that claims made by different organisations, including the Assam College Principals’ Council, alleging that fees payable by affiliated colleges to the university had been increased nearly fourfold, were not based on factual information.
Clarifying the issue, Dr Sarma said that while issuing the Standard Operating Procedure (SOP) for the implementation of the fourth year under the Four-Year Undergraduate Programme (FYUGP), the university had included a one-time permission fee for the newly introduced fourth year. He maintained that this was not a newly created fee but part of the existing fee structure and policy continuity.
According to the Registrar, under the fee structure introduced in 2018, new colleges were required to pay separate one-time permission fees for starting first, second, and third-year classes. Following the same principle, the fourth year has now been incorporated as a new academic stage under the FYUGP.
He further clarified that colleges are not required to pay any additional affiliation fee for introducing the fourth year. Affiliation fees, he said, are programme-based and not dependent on the number of years or semesters in a course. Therefore, extension of a programme from three to four years does not attract any separate or additional affiliation fee.
The registrar pointed out that the university had revised affiliation and permission fees after a gap of seven years, with the last revision having taken place in 2018. While the rules permit fee revision every three years, the current revision, implemented on the recommendation of the statutory Finance Committee, reflects only about a 15 per cent increase over the last seven years, which he claimed is comparatively lower than that of several other universities in Assam, including Dibrugarh University.
He informed that when the programme was launched in the 2023–24 academic session, semester fees were fixed at Rs 16,500 for science subjects and Rs 14,500 for humanities subjects. However, responding to concerns raised by different quarters, the university has decided to reduce semester fees for subsequent semesters by Rs 2,000 from the 2025–26 academic session.
He said that additionally, Gauhati University had decided to provide fee concessions to eligible students belonging to Below Poverty Line (BPL) families enrolled in the Five-Year Integrated Master’s Programme from the current semester of the 2026–27 academic session.
Meanwhile, to examine concerns relating to the fee structure, the Vice-Chancellor on May 25 constituted a 12-member high-level committee.
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