CUTN students write to the UGC, seeking student amenities, examination fees be revoked

Seeking an exemption from paying the student amenities fees for a semester that has been held online, the students of the Central University of Tamil Nadu have now approached the UGC. They have also criticised the administration's decision to collect the examination fees, considering no exams were conducted in the previous semester, despite them paying the fees.

"The odd semester fees (July - Nov 2020) notified by our university consists of library fees, laboratory fees and Student Welfare fees along with the tuition fees. Since the classes are conducting in online mode, we do not access any of the above-mentioned facilities. So these categories of fees should be revoked from the overall semester fee structure as students are willing to pay tuition fees amid the economic crisis," reads an email by the students sent to the UGC Joint Secretary Jitendra Tripathy. However, the students are yet to hear back from the body.

Previously they had sent a similar email to the university's new Vice-Chancellor Dr Karpaga Kumaravel. Even though he agreed to extend the deadline to pay the fee, he did not respond to their query seeking an exemption from the student amenity fee and the examination fee. The students have addressed this too in their email to the UGC. "Even though we had addressed this issue to the concerned office bearers in CUTN including the Vice-Chancellor, Registrar and all the Deans, they were reluctant to consider this issue," it reads.

EdexLive's email to the university, seeking comment on this did not yield a response. This copy will be updated once they respond.