Mumbai: IIT-Powai's MTech students protest against fee hike

The new policies discontinued the stipend for the students, increased course fee by ten-fold

Students at the Indian Institute of Technology (IIT) Bombay held a protest rally in the Powai Campus on Thursday against the huge fee hike among other new revamps in MTech. (Masters in Technology) policies. Over 100 students pursuing the Masters Degree course participated in the protest rally that was held as a response to the national-level call for protest given by the IIT-BHU against the reforms. The rally was followed by a meeting to discuss the future course of protests to oppose the revamps.

According to information provided by the students, On  September 26,  the  53rd  IIT Council meeting headed by the state HRD minister to approve a  ten-fold increase  in MTech course fee and to discontinuing the stipend to MTech students. The current tuition fee for the MTech program in IITs may vary between Rs 30000  to  Rs 50000  per  year.  All M. Tech students are now getting Rs 12400 monthly stipend.  Now the council has decided to increase the M Tech course fee to  Rs  2lakh/year, to discontinue  the stipend given to  M. Tech students and  to encourage more industry-sponsored  MTech students.  The revised fees are even higher than the tuition fee in self-financing institutions. The fee hike and stipend cut will reserve the education in IITs to only the socially and economically privileged.

"The rationale of the IIT council to increase the fee and discontinue the stipend was reported as measures to check students using IIT seats for "parking" themselves before joining in a public sector undertaking. This is dubious.  The above concern can be easily addressed either by not allowing PSUs to recruit from  GATE or the PSUs can recruit before the admissions to IITs begin or appointment of the PSUs made through  a single-window alongside the admission to different  IITs.  In reality,  these two policies will discourage students from socially and economically backward communities from pursuing MTech.  in IITs," said one of the protesting students.

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