Engineering fee hike protest: 50 students detained, later released

Hyderabad: Around 50 students, including engineering students from various colleges in Hyderabad, and the Akhil Bharatiya Vidyarthi Parishad (ABVP) leaders were detained on Friday during a protest against the engineering fee hike. The protest took place on Friday morning in front of the office of the Telangana Council for Higher Education at Masab Tank.

The protesters were later released by the police.

The students were protesting against the fee hike for various engineering courses.

The protestors made five demands to the government, the primary one being the control of fee hike in government engineering colleges. They also asked the government to step in to solve the issue in private engineering colleges.

Besides, the protestors also demanded the management stop quota admissions in private engineering colleges.

Further, they demanded that B-category admissions to engineering courses be conducted online like medical counselling and action be taken against JNTUH officials involved in publishing wrong reports.

Sreesailam Veeramalla, the ABVP national executive member, said, "In 2018, the admission fees for regular courses in government engineering colleges in the state were between Rs. 18,000 and Rs. 35,000. But now it is around Rs. 35,000- 50,000. For self-financing courses, the fees are around Rs. 1 lakh and for courses like Artificial Intelligence, it is around Rs. 1.20 lakhs."

ABVP state secretary Praveen Reddy said it is not reasonable to increase the fees in government universities where talented students can get quality education and research at a nominal fee. "Students are facing many difficulties due to the increasing fees. However, the university authorities are taking decisions without paying attention to the problems of the students at the field level and are planning to increase the fees once again this year."

Reddy alleged that on the one hand, the government is giving benefits to private owners by increasing the fees and on the other, they are doing open business by allocating seats illegally, collecting lakhs of rupees by not following the government rules, and allocating B category management and NRI quota seats in reputed engineering colleges of the state without following government regulations.