Continuing their protest against the fee hike, students of the Indian Institute of Technology (IIT) Bombay have now resorted to sending mass emails to the Board of Governors (BOD) of the institute appealing that they look into the students’ demands.
Students of the University have organised multiple protests and had also announced a hunger strike on July 28 to get the administration to roll back the fee hike for the MTech and PhD courses. As a part of their email campaign now, students have launched a QR code which, when scanned, brings on to the screen a pre-typed email.
The email that was sent to the BOD, which EdexLive has a copy of, stated that, “Many students are yet to come out of the effects of the covid economy and we are having to cope with the steepening inflation. This fact makes the decision of fee hike extremely inconsiderate towards the students whose stipend has remained stagnant for the last three years which is their sole source of income.”
While listing out their demands and elaborating on the issue, the students also said that the current fee hike decision proposed by the Standing Committee of Student Fees is undemocratic as there was not a single student member present in that committee which recommended this decision (which was earlier a recommendation that was accepted by the administration).
Why this email campaign now
“We decided to send emails to the BOG as every time we would complain to the administration about the fee hike, they would say that the BOG increased it not us so now we want the BOG to take note of the issue,” said a PhD student of IIT Bombay on the condition of anonymity. Multiple emails are being sent at the same time so they will have to take note, the student added. Over 100 emails were sent to the BOD but they have not received a single response from them yet.
Meanwhile, students also began a parallel outreach programme to reach out to the faculties of the institute regarding the fee hike issue. “The students visited the offices of a few faculty members today and appealed to them to stand in solidarity. It was noticed by the students that many of them were still not aware of the fee hike by the institute,” as stated in a press release by the institute.
They shared that many faculty members have extended their support to the issues raised by the students and some of them have even agreed to join the students in their campaign for a roll back of fee hike. Additionally, students also began a silent poster demonstration protest, wherein, they held posters with the phrases, “No fee hike until fellowship hike” and “Education for all, fee hike must fall.”
The email drive will continue till August 5 and after that, students plan to go on a hunger strike if the fee hike is still not rolled back by the administration, the students said.