IIT protest has been called off but only temporarily after a partial rollback by the management in the fees that was increased this year.

The students have formed a committee that will hold series of meetings with the authorities in days to come and reach a consensus for the new fee charges for the rest of the semesters.

The IIT Kharagpur students had been protesting outside the office of the director since Monday against the 2 per cent hike in hostel fees. The students, after being on protest for over 24 hours, temporarily called it off on Wednesday evening for a dialogue with the authorities. However, after no middle path could be sought, the students resumed their protest.

After marathon meetings on Wednesday, Thursday and Friday while the students got back to protesting outside the campus, the director of the institute, Professor Partha P Chakrabarti wrote a letter to the students.

Explaining how the fee structure was decided, Chakrabarti wrote, "Some of you have been agitating regarding the revised Mess Overhead Charges that are applicable from the next semester. The reasons are due to the sudden increase in the charges from Rs 8,250 to Rs 15,800. This new mess overhead charge structure was developed by HMC in consultation with the student representatives over a period of time and not in any unilateral manner. The last time the overhead charges were revised was in 2011. Over this period, there has been significant cost escalation which was being met by the Institute. This Institute support was to the tune of an average of Rs 7.5 crores per year in the last few years in various forms. In addition the Institute had funded a reasonably large corpus fund for meeting hostel related exigencies. Like in every other recurring expense, there was an urgent need for revision. In addition, the new scheme combined all the manpower from contracted messes into this Mess Overhead to bring all on to the same platform. This was computed by HMC on request of majority of the students to enable lower mess food bills in contracted messes where manpower was earlier included in the mess food bill. I did a simple calculation of 10% annual increase in cost starting from Rs 8,250 for six years and added the additional manpower cost of the workers of the contracted messes and reached a figure very close to the value proposed now [sic]."

The protesting students feel that they are still seeking comprehensive answers, "they increased the fees okay, they increased it but then since the last 4 days the reason behind the hike and a reduction in the hike. That reason they are not able to tell us, if you have actually increased the fees, with your reasons then come and explain to us the reasons. We are sitting since 4 days, girls are sitting without eating anything in this weather but not even once the directors could come out and tell us the reason behind the hike. Since four days what is this study that you are doing that you are yet not able to explain the reason. First day maybe they were not prepared, it's been 4 days and still they are not prepared. Why are you not coming to us, facing us. The director is ashamed and afraid of facing us, what kind of a director is he? [sic]", said, Navish Kumar Singh, a student of IIT Kharagpur.

The director talked about how the students over-reacted regarding the issue when the matter was still being discussed, "The new rates being a sudden jump, the Student Representatives, HMC and Dean SA requested Institute support to reduce this to some extent. This was brought to my attention since the Deputy Director is out of the country now. In addition, the student representatives, HMC and Dean SA also informed me of certain issues raised by students related to calculation of 7th pay commission, inclusion of GST, separate claims of VSRC residents, married scholars, those who stay outside, possible reduction in Mess Bill Advance due to consolidation of manpower costs within the Mess Overhead Charges, comprehensive menu options, etc. On looking at the basic calculations, I asked for details on each item and was in the process of examining them when a group of students over-reacted in haste on 20th even though the Dean SA had sent out a message. This hasty reaction was not warranted as it only delayed the decision making process and caused great pain and damage all over. [sic]"

Expressing his dissatisfaction regarding how the students behaved, he said, "The situation arising out of such over-reaction was extremely painful for all of us including me as Director of the Institute which is also my alma mater. I saw some students use choicest abusive language on faculty and staff, making uninformed false allegations, blocking entrance gates, confining a large number of people including women for long hours denying them even their basic right of going to the toilet, dirtying the walls of the main building and many other things that I feel very ashamed as an IIT KGP-ian to state.[sic]"

The students felt the faculty was not abiding by the IIT culture, "We will fight, they talk about IIT culture I want to ask them what kind of IIT culture are the faculties following? They are threatening their PHD students is this IIT culture? We don't know what IIT culture they are following but we know our IIT culture,[sic]" said, Singh.

Pointing out that IIT Kharagpur was always the first one to stand up for their students, he said, "We were the first to request the Government not to increase the UG fees to Rs 3 lakhs, agree to the new rule of waivers, the first to implement interest subvention, have increased the MCM limit to Rs 6 lakhs, the first to pledge support to the new scholarship scheme of Rs 25K / 28K for PhD students and give out all arrears, the first to allow project students to transfer to regular PhD students with stipend after 2+ years if project funds are exhausted, the first to allow students of all categories to get some allowance even in the sixth year if needed, we removed the cap on the number of students going for national and international conferences per year, allowed full funding to students for top international conferences. The list is long.[sic]"

The director requested the students to have patience as decision making takes time, "We are in the process of examining all the issues in details to see what is the best we can do. All due diligence requires time and we have to adhere to Government norms. I therefore request you to have patience till we reach some initial decisions which we will announce soon. For other aspects we will have to wait for the first few months of next year as many calculations cannot be done accurately now in the absence of all students, best practices of other Institutes understood in more details, etc. Please do not be provoked into creation of an atmosphere that the rest of the world including recruiting agencies, national and international institutions, which take our students feel that IIT-KGP students are not the type of people they want. Some elements may not have the best interest of students and the Institute in mind. We have to be vigilant.[sic]"

He hoped that the students would be more sensible and normalcy would soon return at IIT-KGP. Director Chakrabarti informed that the issues were already under consideration and the agitation was uncalled for.

(With inputs from Sheikh Shah Jahan Ali, Kharagpur)