RU meal charge hike
Students form action committee
The resident students of Rajshahi University formed a committee on Saturday to intensify their agitations against the authority’s decision to raise the meal charges.
Hundreds of resident students gathered under the banner of ‘Food Security Movement Committee’ and submitted a memorandum to the vice chancellor M Abdus Sobhan containing their demands for withdrawal of the decision to raise the meal charges and for the authorities to care about the food served at dining halls.
They said in the memorandum that in the past the university authorities increased dining fee, admission fee and medical fee time and again, without considering the students’ ability to pay.
They also demanded punishment of Chhatra League men who attacked common students on Tuesday night for staging a protest rally against the decision to raise the meal charges.
The vice chancellor told New that the demand of the residential students would be considered at a meeting he would have with the provosts’ council, students’ adviser and proctorial body members.
The students at a meeting at Bangabundhu Hall on Friday night constituted an 11-member convening committee, with Sabuj ahmed as the convener, to initiate a movement against the decision to charge the meal charges.
Sabuj Ahmed told New Age that the university authorities’ left no opportunity to increase the fees as the students did not protest the decisions in the past.
He said that the students would not accept it this time and would go for a strong movement against the administrative decision.
The students said that they would go for tougher agitations from Sunday unless the hall provosts’ council, backed by the university administration, withdrew the decision to raise the meal charges.
Meanwhile, the dining halls of eight dormitories of Rajshahi University continued to remain deserted as the students have been boycotting meals since Thursday demanding withdrawal of a recent decision to increase the meal charges.
