Agitating AU students clinch victory on fee hike

allahabad: allahabad university students agitating against fee hike for nearly a month clinched a major victory on tuesday when commissioner sadakant, on behalf of the state government, told newsmen that the fee has been slashed for undergraduate students from rs 2,155 to rs.1,572 and for the post graduate from rs.2,605 to rs.2,067 annually. the lab fee for b sc students, however, would be fixed separately.these figures were arrived at after nearly three-hour tripartite talks among the student leaders, district administration and the university administration with sadakant, representing the government. the fee hike was lsahed down, giving relief of rs.585 to the undergraduate students and rs.538 to the post-graduate students, taking the base of lucknow university hiked fee structure.vice-chancellor g k mehta was present at the news conference. sadakant said that now there would be no further roll back in fee which would be charged in two instalments and the second instalment too would be charged only after a committee appointed by the university to go into the question of fee hike would recommend that it was necessary. the admissions would commenced from july 19 as per revised schedule.in the meantime admissions to the university had been suspended for two days, july 17 and 18, apparently in view of the scheduled tripartite talks which yielded encouraging results. sadakant said that no hooliganism would be allowed by the administration on fee hike any further and all concerned would lend support to the university to create an atmosphere conducive to study and research.he warned that disturbances, if any, would be met with firm hands.