OU students set to resume protests over PhD fee issue

According to students, the university has reduced the PhD program fee by only Rs. 5,000, after significantly increasing it in 2022—from Rs. 2,000 to Rs. 20,000 for arts, social sciences, and sciences, and from Rs. 2,500 to Rs. 25,000 for engineering, pharmacy, informatics, and technology programs.

Hyderabad: Osmania University (OU) research scholars are all set to resume their protest demanding the university administration completely roll back PhD fee hike.

The university, according to students, has reduced the PhD programmes fee by just a mere Rs.5,000 after enhancing it from Rs.2,000 to Rs.20,000 for arts, social sciences, sciences and Rs.2,500 to Rs.25,000 for the engineering, pharmacy, informatics and technology programmes in 2022.

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The research scholars lamented that the fee was hiked by the previous administration without any committee constitution or consultation with the student community. Opposing this, students had protested against the decision for about six months, prompting the university to constitute a committee to look into grievances of students.

According to students, the then Vice Chancellor Prof. D Ravinder had said the increased PhD tuition fee would be reimbursed by the State government, but even after two-years since the admission, the research scholars did not receive a penny towards their tuition fee. The committee reportedly recommended reduction of fee by Rs.5,000 for all the programmes which renewed students’ demand for complete revocation of the hike.

Research scholars led by Satya Nelli, a political science PhD student, on Wednesday submitted a representation to newly appointed Vice Chancellor Prof. Molugaram Kumar sought complete roll back of the hiked fee. The VC, according to students, said the fee hike decision was taken by Prof. Ravinder and issue was between them and former VC.

Meanwhile, students urged the administration to expeditiously release the PhD category 2 notification and admit students.