The finance officer of Jadavpur University has written in the university’s first newsletter that JU is facing an acute dearth of resources and facilities for academic development and the only option left for “resource generation” is increasing the fees.
The fees, Gour Krishna Pattanayak has written, are presently the “lowest across all universities and institutes in the country” and have remained static since 2000.
In the article titled “Management of finance in acute dearth of resources in the state-aided universities: special reference to Jadavpur University”, Pattanayak has advocated an enhancement of fees “to a reasonable figure to tide over the situation”.
The article says the primary reason behind the crisis is the depleting financial support from the Centre and the state government.
The finance officer has written that after the end of the 12th Plan period in 2017, the “plan period” concept was withdrawn and the UGC grants for the development of state-aided universities “simply disappeared”.
“Jadavpur University was awarded a special fund of Rs 100 crore under Rusa (Rashtriya Uchchatar Shiksha Abhiyan) scheme (60 per cent from the Centre and 40 per cent from the state government). Although we got the first instalment of Rs 41.67 crore in 2019, the non-receipt of the second instalment compelled us to stop the expenditure in 2021,” Pattanayak has written.
On the lack of support from the state government, he has written that non-salary grants released by the state to support academic and administrative activities “are so paltry that this year it will be less than 50% of the fund requirement of JU”.
The finance officer has also presented a table that shows the monthly tuition fees in the arts, science and engineering faculties: Rs 75, 150 and 200, respectively.
The monthly hostel fee is Rs 25.
“The... tables signify the urgent need for a review of the fee structure, where the basic rule of revision, inflation factors and market price rise should be taken into consideration. We are imparting education with the lowest possible fees, where the very minimum compensation from individuals who are able to pay is also not taken,” Pattanayak has written.
According to him, because of such paltry fees many students do not feel involved in the well-being of the university.
“If this scenario continues, then a day will come when we can’t go for any upgradation/or purchase new equipment,” he writes.
The finance committee had resolved after a meeting in February that all the departments be apprised to restrict their expenses, as far as practicable, in view of the scarcity of funds and avoid procurement of high-value equipment.
Pattanayak told The Telegraph: “Fees can be a powerful source of revenue because of its multiplier effect.”
Calls and text messages to vice-chancellor Suranjan Das went unanswered.
After JU failed to feature among the top 10 institutes in the engineering category in the latest ranking exercise carried out by the Union education ministry, VC Suranjan Das had said in July that an institute needed funds to overhaul its infrastructure for better performance in engineering and science.
The resource crunch has been so acute that a group of former JU students based in California, US, has begun raising funds for the maintenance of the university’s laboratories.
The debate over raising fees is not limited to JU. At IIT Delhi, the new fee for MTech students admitted in 2022-2023 had been fixed at Rs 25,000 per semester.
After a protest by students, the amount was brought down to Rs 17,500.
Students at IIT Bombay had protested in July after the fees for PhD, BTech and MTech courses went up by at least Rs 7,000 per semester.
The Telegraph had on July 21 reported that the hike was implemented after the Union education ministry wrote to the IITs and central universities, prodding them to raise resources internally and reduce dependence on the government.