Cancel development fee at JU

Progotishil Chhatra Jote of Jahangirnagar University yesterday demanded cancellation of the development fee taken from the newly-admitted first-year students and the graduates enrolling for master's programmes.

They submitted a memorandum to Vice Chancellor Prof Farzana Islam at her office with a document containing 4,500 signatures from current students.

In the memorandum, they proposed that instead of taking Tk 7,000 as development fee from each student, the authorities give allocations from the money they collected as admission test registration fees. They said around Tk 16 crore was collected this year, while Tk 1.32 crore is equivalent to the aggregate of the development fees supposed to be charged.

Ariful Islam Anik, general secretary of Chhatra Union, JU unit, said the departments used to charge Tk 5,000 to Tk 12,000 as development fee, but last year, after students' protest, the authorities fixed the amount at Tk 7,000.