Pondicherry University’s justification of fees hike is a ‘set of lies,’ students’ council says

PUDUCHERRY: Pondicherry University students' council termed the justification given by the university to hike fees for all courses as a “set of lies.”
The members of the council, who have been on an indefinite strike demanding rollback of the fees hike since February 6, said the university had made a desperate attempt to “cover up the real issues by propagating false claims through media.”
The council criticised vice-chancellor Gurmeet Singh and the administration for making an “unethical attempt to propagate lies” that the fees hike for most of the courses after 10 years was in the range between 25% and 50%.
"The highest fees hike has been imposed on MCA, MSc/MTech (computer science) and MBA courses and the hikes are unimaginable with a 132.3%, 124% and 95% respectively. The placement opportunities in the university are comparatively limited in terms of the reputation of the employers and salary packages. The fee hike undoubtedly is not to establish nor renovate the infrastructure in the university but to repair the financial crisis, which is a result of the incompetence of the administration. It is unacceptable to throw the burden of this incompetence on to the students," the council said in a statement.
The council pooh-pooed the university claim that there had not been any protest on fees hike in the last 10 months and that the council of 2019-20 suddenly started staging protests in February demanding rollback of hike in fees.
The council pointed out that the vice-president and executive member of the students' council 2018-19 staged a fast in July last year urging the university to roll back the hike in fees following which the university partially rolled back the hike in fees for a few courses and constituted a grievance committee to resolve the issue.
"The students' council 2019-20 took up this constant struggle against the anti-student policies of the administration. Even though the council representatives consistently raised these issues in the grievances committee, the administration continued its reluctant attitude towards them," said the council.
The council rubbished the university's claim that it had jumped 50 points in NIRF rankings. "...the NIRF ranking of Pondicherry University has dropped from 11 to 54, which proves the decline in the academic quality of the varsity. From the evaluation criteria of this ranking, it is clear that the declining reputation of the university is a result if the incompetency of the administration," the council said.
The council said it never welcomed the university's decision to offer a 20% fee reduction for students from economically weaker sections as claimed by the university.