DU Increases Annual Fees by 46% Following HEFA Loans; Check Details Here

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Earlier, on June 7, the university had issued a notice declaring the increase in annual fees by 1000 in all categories.

DU Increases Annual Fees by 46% Following HEFA Loans

New Delhi: Delhi University has yet again increased the annual fees for students for various categories. The annual fees has been increased by 46% to INR 2350. Professors and students of DU are alleging that the university is trying to repay its loans to HEFA through the increased fees.

Replying to the allegations and protests, DU VC Vikas Gupta said , "The fee hike has nothing to do with HEFA loan and the university has enough funds to pay the interest." A loan corpus of Rs 930 crore was approved by the Higher Education Financing Agency (HEFA),he had told PTI.

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Earlier, on June 7, an official order had been released by DU notifying that the charges for university facilities and services have been doubled to Rs 1,000 with effect from the academic year 2023-24. Reportedly this was the first fee hike in the last 13 years.

The university has also doubled the charges for its students' welfare funds to Rs 200 while increasing the charges for its development funds by more than 10 per cent to Rs 1,000 from Rs 900 revised in June last year.

The annual charges for economically weaker section support university fund have also been revised to Rs 150 for the new academic year. The university development fund component of the annual charges was increased to Rs 900 from Rs 600 in 2022.

Students and teachers are taking to social media and other platforms their protests against the fee hike. "To undertake various development projects, the University is now increasing the fees of the students to repay the interest on the loan taken by the university from HEFA. This is a step completely against the affordable education setup of a Central University, thereby making education inaccessible to many," a DU professor said.

Along with this, the university has also received criticism on its proposal to improve the university’s global ranking as envisaged in the 'Strategic Plan 2022-2047'. According to the faculty and studnets, the funds required to build the infrastructure to achieve the get goals will be sufficed through private funding which will ultimately result in fee hike.

The Left-affiliated Democratic Teachers' Front has demanded that the 'Strategic Plan 2022-2047' to be tabled before the Academic Council on December 6 should be withdrawn also pointing that its content is "plagiarised".

"The document talks about the inevitability of fee hikes and substantial development fees to meet its goals. Dependence on market funding not only will undermine the public character of the university but also alter the character of its academic programmes and activities," the DTF said in a statement.

The Academic Council will meet on December 6 to give its final nod to several key proposals discussed during its meeting on November 30.

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