Andhra Pradesh - Tirupati   

Student unions take to streets

— Photo: K. V. Poornachandra Kumar

Angry young men: Students laying siege to the TTD administrative building in Tirupati on Wednesday.

TIRUPATI: Several student unions hit the roads in Tirupati on Wednesday with a range of demands including rollback of the fee hike in professional courses and filling of vacant teaching positions.

Taking exception to the hike made in the tuition fee for engineering, MBA and MCA courses, the consortium of students unions disrupted the counselling session for two hours on Sri Venkateswara University campus by laying siege to the building. When the leaders tried to barge into the centre amid heavy sloganeering, policemen on guard swooped down on the leaders and housed them in SVU police station for an hour.

Students Federation of India (SFI) State vice-president S. Jayachandra flayed the State government for citing inflation as an excuse to increase the fee, adding that it would burden the professional college students to the tune of Rs.75 crore.

The leaders feared that the increase of Rs.2,700 and Rs.6,700 for Category ‘A’ and ‘B’ respectively could further bring down the number of aspirants for professional courses.

Students led by Girijana Vidyarthi Samakhya besieged the Tirumala Tirupati Devasthanams’ administrative building with the demand to fill up the teaching positions lying vacant for long. The students also blamed the TTD for not providing hostel accommodation to SC, ST, BC and minority students.

Meanwhile, Tribal Students Federation has alleged that allotment of seats in the TTD’s Sri Padmavathi Women’s Degree College and hostel was being made only to students recommended by political bigwigs, leaving scores of students waiting in the corridors for almost a week.

Also, the college was flayed for demanding payment of mess bills from SC/ST students every month, a procedure not practised in any of the other TTD-run colleges.

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