Lucknow: In view of inflation in the current years, the Aligarh Muslim University (AMU) has decided to raise the fees of various under-graduate and post-graduate courses from this year. The university had not increased the fees in last 15 years.
As per sources, AMU has increased the admission fee from Rs 165 to Rs 300, and games fees from Rs 150 to Rs 200. Hostel charges have been hiked to Rs 500 from Rs 385 and the kitchen establishment charges have been raised to Rs 300 from Rs 180 in the past.
In addition, the tour fee of under-graduate courses has been increased by wide margin. Tour fees for BA, B Com, B Sc, Bachelor of Social Works students have been raised to Rs 100 from Rs 10. While, the students of Bachelor of Library Science will have to pay Rs 800 now up from Rs 100 earlier. As the information says, infrastructure development fees have been increased to 1,200 from Rs 1,050. From now, the students will have to pay Rs 750 for the shervani clothpiece, whereas they were paying only Rs 540 at the time of admission before.
In a statement, the university spokesperson Rahat Abrar informed that nearly 20 to 30 per cent hike has been made in the fees of almost all the courses and hostel as well as meal charges. He added that university's Executive Council has approved the new fee structure.
The AMU had not hiked fees in the last 15 years, but inflation over the years demanded the revision in existing fee structure, said Mr. Abrar. As mentioned in the covering letter of the proposed fee structure revision, written by Vice-Chancellor Lieutenant General (retd) Zameeruddin Shah, the hike has come after the University Grants Commission (UGC) fixed the grant to the universities across the state, and has been asking the universities to generate their resources to pay cater the expenses.
Furthermore, Shah also said that before arriving at the revised fee structure, existing fee structures of Jamia Millia Islamia, Banaras Hindu University and Delhi University were closely examined, and the new revised fees of AMU are still less than those universities. The fee hike will help the university to improve the infrastructure facilities on campus and introduce new advanced courses, stated another AMU official.
Moreover, the AMU vice-chancellor had recently appealed to the university alumni around the world to make contributions as the university may require additional funds of Rs 100 crore over a period of next five years to improve the infrastructure. He had also said that government funding, alone, was inadequate to meet requirements for the expansion and modernisation programme in university. Shah had informed that AMU required funding to improve the infrastructure facilities and development programmes being carried out.
