JNU fee rollback: HRD sitting on panel's report

New Delhi: It seems the recommendations of Union government's high-powered committee to not increase hostel fee of JNU without consulting all stakeholders have struck into policy paralysis as the Union Human Resource Development (HRD) Ministry has not moved an inch to consider the panel's suggestions.

According to sources, the HRD Ministry has not yet decided as till when the recommendations of the high-powered committee would be sent to President for the final approval.

"The ministry has not yet decided to send the report to the President. The chances are there that the report would be sent to the Visitor in the second week of December," the sources said, adding that the meeting of JNU student union's office-bearers with Higher Education Secretary R Subrahmanyam remained inconclusive.

In the meeting that lasted for over 30 minutes, JNU students on Friday made it clear that unless there would be no 100 per cent rollback of the hiked hostel fees, the protest would continue.

It's worth mentioning that the panel, which was set up by the HRD Ministry on November 16 to recommend ways to restore normal functioning in JNU, had submitted its report to the government on Tuesday. The members of the panel were former UGC chairman VS Chauhan, AICTE chairman Anil Sahasrabudhe and UGC secretary Rajnish Jain.

The committee in its report has suggested that the university should ensure that stakeholders participate in decision-making and the University Grants Commission (UGC) should bear the cost by paying the increased amount to JNU. As per the experts, once the government accepts the committee's suggestions, it would be a complete rollback of the hostel fee hike and any future decision in this regard would only be taken after consultation with students.