‘JNU facing fund crunch’, JNUSU calls it ‘VC’s favourite line’; hunger strike enters 10th day

NEW DELHI: As the JNU Student Union’s (JNUSU) indefinite hunger strike enters 10th day, Jawaharlal Nehru University (JNU) has issued a clarification today stating that it is unable to meet the students' demands due to fund crunch. The JNU vice-chancellor Santishree D Pandit who met the protesting students for a few minutes asked to call off the strike and “did not say anything concretely about any of the demands”, the JNUSU claimed.

The JNU administration in a post on social media on Wednesday said that the university will have to generate its own funds and increase receipts without increasing the fees to meet the expenses.

“The ministry of education totally subsidizes JNU but JNU has no internal receipts of its own unlike other Central Universities who raise 20% to 30% from internal receipts. Over the years students, teachers and staff have increased on campus. Students in JNU pay fee as low as Rs. 10 and Rs. 20 till date,” the administration said.

JNU and HEFA loan

The Higher Education Finance Agency (HEFA) was set up by the MoE in 2017 with an aim to raise up to Rs 10,000 crore from the private sector to extend as infrastructure loans to public higher educational institutions.

JNU was allocated a HEFA loan of Rs 455 crore and recently it announced plans to start short-term online courses to develop e-learning platforms to support underprivileged students. However, reports on poor infrastructure, shortage in drinking water and issues related to hostel facilities are frequently voiced out by the students.

Reiterating that the education ministry has supported the “spiraling demands” by increasing funds, the university said: “But still we are unable to meet the ever increasing costs related to infrastructure, books, online sources, software etc. required for research.”

It further claimed that the merit-cum-means scholarships awarded for eligible students enrolled in JNU is completely borne by the university. “In such a scenario, one has to plan for the future. JNU needs to generate its own funds, increase receipts without raising fees. Hence some of these ideas include ways of public-private partnerships to run, revamp, reuse and optimize JNU assets which can help generate regular income for the university,” it added.

Meanwhile, the JNUSU has also called for a long march to the ministry of education on August 23, along with a 2-day university strike.

Also read Education Budget: Modi govt’s HEFA loans ate into central institutes’ infra funds, despite slow disbursement

Demands of JNUSU

JNU VC repeated her “favourite line about having no money’ when the protesting students demanded for non-NET fellowship, reinstating fellowship for MTech and MPH, and opening of Barak Hostel, the students’ union said.

In February this year, Union home minister Amit Shah digitally inaugurated the Barak Hostel; the foundation stone was laid in July 2017. The construction, for which Rs 28.675 crore was allocated, was delayed by three years and rooms are yet to be allocated to students.

“On issues of reinstating GSCASH, reducing viva voce weightage, reinstating deprivation points, and revoking the CPO manual, she said that she cannot do anything as everything has been legally mandated!” it said.

Calling the argument of a fund crunch “sham” and “bogus”, the students claimed that “Lakhs of crores of funds collected through Cess by the Union Government have been redirected to other purposes. Furthermore, there has been a sharp decline in the allocation for higher education in this year's budget.” It further asked the university to not attempt selling JNU's Gomti Guest House.