High-power panel to visit JNU

New Delhi: A high-power committee constituted by the HRD ministry will visit the JNU campus on Friday to meet the students and find a solution to the current issues concerning the university, officials said on Wednesday.

Earlier in the day, Jawaharlal Nehru University Students’ Union (JNUSU) office-bearers met the committee members at Shastri Bhawan here. The students have been agitating for over three weeks, demanding rollback of a recent hostel fee hike.

“The high-power committee of the human resource development (HRD) ministry met students from JNU on Wednesday and took stock of their views at a cordial meeting at Shastri Bhawan. They agreed to meet the students again on Friday at the JNU campus to find solutions to the current issue,” a senior official of the ministry said. “The committee appealed to the students to restore normalcy on the campus immediately, to which the students responded positively,” he added.

The meeting commenced at around 10.30 am. The JNUSU office-bearer attended it along with student councillors from different schools of the university. The JNUSU put forth the demand for a complete rollback of the hostel fee hike and said till the time the committee submitted its report, the fee hike must be put in abeyance.

“We demanded that the inter-hall administration committee meeting that was held on October 28 without the students’ union be reconvened and the hostel manual be passed only after suggestions are taken from us,” JNUSU secretary Satish Chandra Yadav said. “We also put forth the point about the vice-chancellor not meeting us, which has brought the situation to this level,” he added.

The JNUSU issued a statement, saying, “Our demand is to arrive at a new manual through an acceptable deliberative process. The current manual disregards affirmative action and does not guarantee reservations to SC, ST and PWD (persons with disabilities) students in hostel seats, which we cannot accept.

“We shall nether deviate nor deter from our demands – complete withdrawal of the manual and the decisions taken at the council meeting. The HRD ministry must ensure accountability of the JNU administration through the resignation of the vice-chancellor or recommend constitution of a visitorial enquiry,” the statement added.

The committee members also met the hostel presidents of JNU later in the day. The HRD ministry constituted the three-member committee on Monday to recommend ways to restore normal functioning at JNU.

The panel members met JNU officials on Tuesday. While the JNUSU alleged that the registrar and the V-C refused to meet the panel members, the university maintained that only the deans of all schools were called for the meeting.