All Bodo Students’ Union stages dharna against hike in admission fees at CIT, Kokrajhar

Our Correspondent

Kokrajhar: The influential student body of the region, All Bodo Students’ Union (ABSU) staged two hours dharna on Monday at Central Institute of Technology (CIT) in protest against increasing of admission fees. The student body said that the economic subjugation by increasing admission fees was economic injustice to economically weak students’.

The ABSU also submitted a memorandum to the chairman of the Board of Governors of CIT and sent copies to the president, CIT Society, Director, Registrar and BOG members. Talking to reporters, Jayanta Basumatary, spokesman, and Kwrwmdao Wary, assistant general secretary of the ABSU, said that the union was compelled to stage the two-hour sit-in to demand immediate stop of the ongoing admission with the new admission fee structure, withdrawal of the hiked admission fees of session 2019-2020 and continuation of the previous year’s admission fees, and to reveal the break-up of fee structure for respective categories and semesters.

They said that these demands had been made in the interest of aspiring students who were waiting for admission into CIT but were unable to do so due to the unprecedented hike in the admission fees for Semester 1 of session 2019-2020 in the Diploma, B.Tech and B.Des courses. They said such blatant increase in admission fees was systematic economic subjugation of the local economically-weak students. They said that such economic injustice would never be tolerated by ABSU. They also said that there were complaints of administrative callousness that were also connected with this economic injustice by the authority concerned.

In the present session 2019-2020, admission fees for SC/ST/PWD in first-semester Diploma is Rs. 40,500 (including hostel fees) while in the previous years the admission fees was Rs.12,790. Thus, the fees has been increased by Rs 27,710.

The leaders said the ABSU would never tolerate such frivolous administration which would affect and deprive the students from economically-weak background. No matter what, eligible students of this region, as per the reservation policy of CIT, have to be given opportunity for pursuing technical education from CIT (Deemed to be University), Kokrajhar, they said. The ABSU has demanded that the authority should resolve the issues before the next counselling session for admission begins on July 4, failing which the ABSU would launch more rigorous movement until this economic injustice ends.

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