On September 23, the Students' Federation of India's (SFI) University of Hyderabad (UoH) unit staged a protest against the high fees being charged for UG admissions under the Common University Entrance Test (CUET) exam 2022. The CUET UG admissions notification was released on September 20, 2022.
The unit's Secretary Siva Durga Rao informed EdexLive, "UoH is asking exorbitant amount, that is, Rs 600 for UR, Rs 550 for EWS, Rs 400 for OBC and Rs 275 for SC/ST candidates as application fees." In this regard, the unit's delegation met the Controller of Examinations (CE) "with a request to revoke the unjustifiable charging of huge amount from candidates who have already cleared the common entrance."
In the light of the Controller of Examinations' (CE) alleged rude behaviour towards students and his refusal to address their concerns, SFI HCU was forced to call for a flash protest in front of the Vice-Chancellor's office, the unit said.
Giving more details on the protest, Secretary SFI HCU Siva Durga Rao said, "The protest was staged from 3 pm to 8 pm in which about 40 students participated."
What now?
The unit claims that after the protest, the Controller of Examinations gave an oral assurance that the amount will be reduced. In this context, Shiva informed EdexLive that, "University's CE has agreed that instead of collecting Rs 600 separately for each subject, they will club all Science, Social Science subjects and so on and collect Rs 600 for one group (of five subjects)."
"Hence, the burden has been reduced from Rs 3,000 to Rs 600 for students applying for multiple subjects, which is usually the case for the integrated PG courses," he claimed.
Shiva clarifies that as the university is centralised, it will have to reach out to Samarth to make the necessary changes. Samarth is a student portal for CUET admission registration.
Also, on September 24, the SFI HCU Unit tweeted saying they will be staging a protest "Mashal Juloos" as against the "brutality unleashed by VC and Registrar through the security on comrades who were protesting against the charging of exorbitant sums in the name of application fee," it read. "We urge all students to join the Mashal Juloos in large numbers on 25th September, Sunday 8:30 Pm Gather At Lh-9 Premises," it added.
