JNU administration forms committee to find solution to hostel issues

The JNU administration, on Sunday, constituted a High-level committee to receive suggestions from the student representatives and find a solution for the hostel issue. The administration aims to resolve the on-going JNU hostel crisis. The varsity issued a circular which said that a high-level committee has been formed in order to find solutions for the hostel issues. The seven members of the Committee include Professor Rana P Singh, Professor Girish Nath Jha, Professor Ashwini Mohapatra, Professor Pawan Kumar Dhar, Professor Vandana Mishra, Professor Umesh A Kadam and Dr. Neeraj Samajdar, the circular read.

The administration earlier provided an explanation for its move on hostel fee hike stating that the university is more than 45 crores deficit. The reasons for the deficit were listed were the high electricity and water charges and the salary of the staff employed on a contractual basis in the university. On Thursday, 21st November 2019, the university administration issued a fact sheet on the hostel issue. In the sheet, it was stated that the UGC does not pay the salaries of the contractual employees of the hostel. The salaries of these staff members are rather derived from the salary head of the budget. The number of such contractual employees in the university hostels is presently over 450.

The UGC had instructed the university that all shortfalls in the non-salary expenditures are to be met by using internal receipts which are generated by the university. The administration thus, stated that there was no alternative but to collect the service charges from the residing students. The students of JNU went on a protest after the administration gave its approval for the new hostel manual, including fee hike.

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