Guardians' forum seeks CM's intervention over fee hike woes

Kolkata: The guardians' forum of a well-known south Kolkata school has sought the intervention of Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee to address the issue of the fee hike announced by the school to be implemented from April.

A four-member delegation of the forum had met a senior official of the Chief Minister's residential on February 9 and submitted a deputation addressed to Banerjee. "We have been informed through our sources that the matter has been forwarded to the state Education department. But we are yet to hear anything from there. In the second week of April latest, the new fees will be debited through ECS. So we wanted to draw the attention of our honourable Chief Minister through media," a member of the guardians' forum said addressing a press meet at Press Club on Wednesday.

The school authorities have been increasing the fees more or less by 10 per cent every year. This time the increase has been 23 per cent. So the effective increase stands at 13 per cent. "We had proposed that a one time increase of this 13 per cent extra to be collected in two phases – at the rate of 7 per cent in the next fiscal (starting from April) and 6 per cent in the year following this but the school authorities have not taken any stand as yet and the new fee structure that was announced is still existing in the website," said another member of the guardians' forum. The forum has agitated in front of the school at Mandeville Gardens and has also held a meeting with the school authorities but there has been no reconsideration as yet.