Students’ council writes to MHRD to scrap M.Tech fee hike, warns of bigger protest

As per the new rules, the students will pay now have to shell out around Rs 2-3 lakhs as opposed to Rs 30,000-50,000 earlier. The All India Engineering Student Council wrote a letter to the Ministry of Human Resource and Development (MHRD) with the signature of the protesting students.

IN VIDEO | Why engineering students are protesting against M.Tech fee hike

“Today we have come to raise our voice against the fee hike on M.Tech courses, but this is not the end. If our demands are not met, we will again meet after Dusshera at the Ramlila Maidan with the participation of a large number of students. The date of protest will be announced soon,” said Umesh Dhande, an agitating teacher.

The agitating teacher argued that from ISRO to DMRC and several other projects, it is the scientists and engineers who make lives easy for people and help in the growth of the nation. Some also supported the HRD’s decision and compared it with ‘surgical strike’.

M.Tech fee hike: The students who came from all around India at a shout voiced their demand to scrap the fee hike of Masters of Technology (M.Tech) courses. Express Photo by Arnab Mitra

Earlier, the IIT-Delhi Director V Ramgopal Rao termed the recent hike in course fee a ‘surgical strike’ saying, “The freebies we have been doling out with taxpayers’ money to students who are uninterested and into systems which have become unaccountable need to stop at some point.”

Stop the hypocrisy @narendramodi @PMOIndia @iitbombay @iitdelhi

— Anuja Sharma (@AnujaSharma09) October 1, 2019

Sudarshana Tripathi, who hails from a poor family in Jharkhand said, “I took education loans for my four-year B.Tech courses which I am paying, I don’t have enough money to again take education loans for my M.Tech courses. So poor students like who wants to move into academic or simply want to make a better academic profile will be denied with this recent regulations.”

Over 68,000 students have signed the online petition demanding the withdrawal of the fee hike and the petition is now doing the rounds on social media. Several students have also appealed to Prime Minister Narendra Modi to roll back the fee hike decision.