Central University of Andhra Pradesh students boycott classes against high fee
ANANTAPUR: Students of all departments at Central University of Andhra Pradesh (CUAP) have started boycotting their online classes protesting over charging of enormous fee by authorities of the institution.
"CUAP is a central university established as per AP Bifurcation Act, 2014 for development of the backward Anantapur district. Though being a public university, it is charging highly unreasonable fees for social sciences and humanities courses, which do not require any infrastructure like science or computer labs and other sophisticated facilities. High fee will have a negative impact on students as well as university’s future, as students will prefer other central universities,” pointed out Sai Ram Macha, a final year student of B.A Honours in Political Science.
Student organisations claim fee structure of under-graduation and post-graduation courses at Central University of Andhra Pradesh is 10 times more than the same programmes at other central universities.
For example, they say Hyderabad Central University (HCU); the mentor university for CUAP, has fixed Rs. 510 as fee for under-graduation courses while CUAP is collecting Rs. 6,175 for BA Honours and B. SC. Further, the Gujarat Central University collects only Rs. 500 for these courses while Kerala Central University charges Rs. 545, the student bodies maintain.
Further, they say the Central University in AP has fixed Rs. 6,890 as fee for B. Voc programmes. For these very programmes, the Rajasthan Central University charges only Rs. 630, Himachal Pradesh CU Rs. 500 and Jammu and Kashmir CUs collect only Rs. 1,500 as tuition fees.
The Anantapur central university students say similar is the case with post-graduate courses being offered by the university, which are far higher than those charged by other central universities in the country.
Even though students have submitted numerous representations to Prof. Appa Rao, vice chancellor of University of Hyderabad, who was the chairman of CUAP Society, the issue is still pending.
When contacted, CUAP authorities maintained that the matter will soon be taken up and resolved.
