Students want TISS to waive outstanding fees for the poor

Students at the Tata Institute of Social Sciences (TISS), Mumbai, are demanding a waiver of outstanding fees for those belonging to marginal sections like scheduled

Students at the Tata Institute of Social Sciences (TISS), Mumbai, are demanding a waiver of outstanding fees for those belonging to marginal sections like scheduled caste (SC), scheduled tribe (ST), other backward classes (OBC) and economically weaker sections (EWS).

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For the graduating batch of 2018-20, the final date for paying the tuition fee, dining fee and hostel fee is May 31. However, owing to the Covid-19 pandemic that has affected the means of income of many families, the Progressive Students’ Forum (PSF) at TISS has claimed that students are not in a position to pay their outstanding fees. Students eligible for the Government of India Post-Matric Scholarship (GoI-PMS) have not received their scholarship fee from the central government, said PSF in a letter to the administration.

The PSF has, therefore, demanded a complete waiver of outstanding fees of graduating students coming from SC, ST, OBC (NC) and EWS sections of the society. The forum has also sought a partial fee waiver of 50% for the students not falling under these categories but are unable to pay the money due to the lockdown.

“No student should be levied a late fine because of the delay in reimbursement of scholarships,” the letter said.

A source in the institute’s administration, however, indicated that any kind of waiver — partial or full — was not possible, given the institute’s financial health. The institute has been incurring deficits to the tune of Rs 9 crore annually, according to its annual reports. “The institute is doing its best to raise student aid to support students coming from marginal communities. We have raised over Rs 2.15 crore as student aids in 2019-20. Waiving off outstanding fees would mean waiving off around Rs 80 lakh, which is not feasible for the institute,” said the official.

Last year, following protests over the fee issue, the institute had allowed final year students, particularly those from marginal communities, to pay their fees by May 2020 after their GoI-PMS funds had been disbursed, instead of the regular deadline of June 2019.

“We will not be able to give any further extensions,” said the source. A final decision from the institute is awaited.

Group condemned over webinar

An independent student forum at the TISS campus, Democratic Secular Students’ Forum, has come under criticism for holding a webinar on “five things the youth must do to become an intellectual Kshatriya”. The student union of the institute has condemned the webinar and called it “an attempt to sabotage the anti-caste movement” on the campus. Asha Banu, dean student affairs at TISS, said that since the seminar was happening on social media, the institute administration had no jurisdiction over the same. “As long as they are not using the TISS campus or the logo, the administration has no jurisdiction over such activities,” she said.