Fee hike Chhatar Abhibhavak Munch stage demonstration in Shimla

The Chhatar-Abhibhavak Munch (Student Parent Forum) Himachal Pradesh staged a  demonstration on the Directorate of Higher Education on Wednesday against the harassment of parents by the school managements . CAM was protesting against charging of heavy fees, arbitrary loot and fee hike by the private schools during Covid pandemic in the state.
 

During the demonstration, the delegation of the CAM met the Director of Higher Education and handed over a seven-point demand letter to him. Director Education promised the Protesting parents that  notification would be issued immediately to stop loot and arbitrariness of private schools. 

The Manch has warned that if the arbitrary loot of private schools, the dictatorship of Saraswati Paradise, and Dayanand Public, School Management is not stopped, they would intensify the movement. Manch’s state convener Vijendra Mehra and Manch’s Saraswati Paradise International School unit convener Vivek Kashyap have said that due to the failure of the state government and its collusion with private schools, private schools are continuously doing arbitrary. 

 “Even during the Corona period, apart from tuition fees, private schools are charging annual charges, computer fees, smart class rooms, miscellaneous, cares, sports, maintenance, infrastructure, building funds, transport and all other types of funds and charges. ” they alleged.
 “Private schools have cleverly continued the loot by converting more than eighty percent of the total fees into tuition fees in the year 2021. “
 “To harass the parents who are unable to pay fees due to loss of employment during the Corona period, threats are being made to charge late fees of one hundred rupees from them every day, to remove the children from online classes and school.” Mr Kashyap said.

Seeking a regulatory bodies to regulate the school fee by private school Mr  Mehra said that the government took three years to prepare the draft of the law it took dozens of suggestions from the Protesting parents to bring legislation but after months, government is deliberately reluctant to enact the law.  
During the monsoon session of state assembly they are expecting to enact fee regulation and regulatory body but due to the insensitivity of the government, the law could not be made.  
He said that parents are suffering due to the failure of the government, without going to day to school fee have been increased from fifteen to fifty percent. 

 Despite non-running of schools, the cost of electricity, water, sports, computer, smart class room, maintenance, cleaning etc. of schools has become almost nill, then why private schools management are increasing the fees, he asked. 
Questioning the silence of Goverment he  said that private schools are openly violating the guidelines of the Ministry of Human Resource Development of 2014 and the Department of Education dated December 5, 2019 on the matter of fee collection and are bypassing the role of the school general bodies of the parents by deciding fee hike arbitrary. 
 Defying the Himachal Pradesh High court decision of 2016 Private schools are still collecting admission fees through the back door, by levying annual charges he said that Court had stayed the collection of all types of user charges from the students in the name of School fee.  
He  demanded the state government that it should immediately enact a law and constitute a regulatory commission to administer the fees, curriculum and admission process in private schools.
Vijender Mehra, Vivek Kashyap, Balbir Parashar, Balak Ram, Vonod Birsanta, Ramprakash, Pratap, Sapna, Preeti, Sony, Reshma, Rani, Nikki Mehta, Bhavna, Basant Singh, Laik Ram, Birju Kumar and Jitendra Kumar were involved in the performance. .