Irate students barge into BU meet

Bangalore University officials were caught off guard when a group of students barged into the Syndicate’s closed-door meeting held at the Central College here on Friday, protesting a hike in the examination fee.

The students, belonging to various student organisations, entered the meeting hall and demanded that the fee hike be rolled back.

Speaking to mediapersons, Vice Chancellor Thimme Gowda said the university could not reduce the fee, as the decision had been taken by the government. Until now, the government used to completely reimburse the SC, ST and OBC students’ examination fee to the university and hence it did not charge them. “But now, there’s a modification.

While the government completely reimbursed the amount to SC/ST students, in the case of OBC students, the amount would be put into their account if the students produce the fee receipt,” the vice chancellor explained. “In this too, we have decided to waive the fee by 50 per cent.”

This decision was taken in June 2013 and since several students said they had not applied for reimbursement, the university decided to bear the cost during the semester exams in November 2013, Gowda said. Moreover, several among the protesters were not even university students, he alleged.

Police have arrested six protesters – Ravindran 30, Chikkaraju, 28, Hariprasad, 27, Gururaj Desai, 28, Venkatesh, 23, and Hanumanth Durgad, 22. The arrested were booked for rioting, following a complaint filed by the registrar.