UoH defers decision on hostel fee hike

HYDERABAD: The University of Hyderabad’s Academic Council on Tuesday held a marathon meeting on the proposed hostel fee hike but failed to take a decision either way.The council had proposed to hike the hostel fee by 250% in November last year drawing sharp reactions from the students.According to the students’ representatives on the council, after over three hours of talks, it was decided to defer the issue for further discussions.“Vice-Chancellor Prof Ramakrishna Ramaswamy has decided to take a call on the issue only after taking the students into confidence,” Sambath Sambasivan, general secretary of the students’ union, told City Express.The university had proposed to hike the hostel charges for general students from Rs 3,850 to Rs 9,600 and from Rs 2,150 to Rs 4,650 for students from reserved category, in a move aimed at mobilising more internal resources as the UGC had expressed itsinability to enhance non-salary allocations following the Human Resource Development Ministry’s failure to hike the same for 2010-11 and 2011-12.The controversial issue of the integrated master’s course in nursing science, for which the varsity had not acquired an INC recognition, also came up for discussion at the council meeting.“We briefed the Academic Council. The administration will take a call on this only after the INC inspection team visits the campus. Based on the report of the team, a special Academic Council meeting would be held to discuss the issue,” said Geeta Vemuganti, Dean of the School of Medical Sciences. The university, according to students’ union representatives, has also decided to treat UGC-MANF (Maulana Azad National Fellowship) on a par with the UGC-JRF and UGC-RGNF during admissions for MPhil and PhD.It has also been decided to introduce a special non-credit, non-certificate course in English to provide both written and communication skills to students from the coming year. “The decisions taken will be approved by the Vice-Chancellor after the minutes of the meeting is submitted. It will take two days but before that I cannot confirm anything,” said Rajasekhar, Dean of Students’ Welfare.