After JNU, students of IIMC now up in arms against fee

At a time when the issue of hostel fee hike in Jawaharlal Nehru University (JNU) was yet to be resolved by the government, students of the Indian Institute of Mass Communication (IIMC) are up in arms against hike in tuition fee of various courses offered by the institute.

Students of the institute, which comes under the Information and Broadcasting (I&B) ministry, are also protesting against the hike in hostel and mess charges, demanding that the institute must roll back the increased fees and other charges to ensure that its courses remain “affordable” to all category of students.

The IIMC administration on Wednesday held several rounds of talks with the students, who have been protesting since Tuesday, urging them to call off their stir.

The students, however, remained adamant on their demands, threatening to go on hunger strike from Thursday if the institute administration does not roll back the hike in fees and hostel charges.

“We will hold a meeting tonight and decide whether we should go for an indefinite hunger strike from tomorrow or night,” Shivam Bhardwaj, a student of Hindi journalism at the IIMC, told DH.

The IIMC has fixed the fee for a course in Radio and TV Journalism at Rs 1,68,500 from 2019-20 academic session, Advertising and Public Relations Rs 1,31,500, Hindi and English Journalism Rs 95,500 each, and Urdu Journalism Rs 55,500.

In the previous academic session, the fees for Radio and TV Journalism was kept at Rs 1,45,000, Advertising and Public Relations Rs 1,12,000, Hindi and English Rs 77000 each and Urdu Journalism and Rs 43,000.

“They have provision to increase the fee by 10 per cent every year. But this year they have increased the fee crossing this 10% limit. They have been increasing fees every year, making journalism courses at the institute unaffordable for the students coming from economically weaker sections,” Bhardwaj said.