As the new application fee for Delhi University came out which is same for the OBC and Unreserved students, various students have raised objections against the administration. The Birsa Ambedkar Phule Students’ Association has written about the same to the vice-chancellor of the University.
The University, as per the new fees, is charging Rs. 100 from SC, ST, PWD and EWS students while Rs. 250 for unreserved and OBC students, for the undergraduate courses. In the case of Postgraduate courses, it is Rs. 300 for the former and Rs. 750 for the latter.
In the letter, BAPSA has mentioned that according to various researches and studies, many backward classes deprive the opportunity to a quality education because of socio-economic reasons and discrimination. The criteria for the non-creamy layer from the OBC category are the same as that of the EWS category then why is there a difference between the application fees.
A JNU student group also wrote to Delhi University’s administration to remove the discriminatory fee to make higher education accessible to everyone in the society without any barrier that would impact any student from the socially disadvantaged group.
Omprakash Mahata, the President of BAPSA also mentioned that this is not the first time when students are writing to the administration. The University has started this practice of discriminatory fee from last year only and it received opposition then as well but it resulted in nothing. For EWS, the annual income limit is Rs. 8 lakh while for OBC creamy layer, it is Rs. 6 lakh. It is completely unfair to charge the same fees and violates the Mandal Commission Guidelines.
