Hindu College girls protest over hostel fee hike

NEW DELHI: Female students of Hindu College on Thursday staged a demonstration outside the administration office of the Delhi University Arts Faculty protesting against the steep hike in their hostel fees.

The girls asked authorities to revoke the discriminatory hostel rules and sought a transparent admission procedure for hostels.

The students had, on Tuesday, submitted a questionnaire to college principal Anju Srivastava, giving her a 48-hour deadline to submit a suitable reply.

"Since the principal failed to respond, we have decided to take legal recourse," said Sheethal N S, a second year BA English (Honours) student. The student also said that a PIL has been filed against the college over the exorbirtant hostel fee.

"While boys are charged Rs 47,000 per year as hostel fee, the fee set for the girls' hostel comes to around Rs 91,000. Also, unlike the boys hostels, neither a prospectus nor an explanation for the fee structure has been given in the girls' hostels," said Utkarsh, an activist protesting at Arts Faculty.

The evident gender bias in imposing curfew was another issue raised in the protest.

While both hostels are supposed to follow the 10 pm curfew, the girls' hostel experiences stringent imposition of this. The enforcement of curfew at boys hostel, meanwhile is lax, if enforced at all.

"When the principal saw us, she shouted at us saying that we had not informed her about the protest. In fact, we had obtained prior police permission for the protest and did not feel the need to intimate the people whom we were protesting against," said Sana, a third year student at the College.

The Joint Action Committee for Women's Hostel has been protesting against the administration for "carrying out the admission at the hostel in a non-transparent way."

A student noted: "They have just given a form on the website and only after a student fills up the form, the prospectus is sent to him/her. Why cannot we see the prospectus?"

"Our principal has been saying that they did not get any funds from the University Grants Commission and that is why the fee is higher for the girls' hostel. But is that the right reason? We want our principal to talk to us and address this problem openly, which she hasn't done so far," said Sana.