We Are Not ATMs: The Human Cost of HPU’s Fee Hike and Administrative Chaos

Let’s be honest—when a student gets into a public university, they aren’t expecting a luxury resort. But they are expecting fairness. They are expecting that their parents’ hard-earned money—often scraped together from loans, savings, and sacrifices—will go toward quality education, not toward plugging the holes of a sinking administration.

Right now, at Himachal Pradesh University, that trust is being shattered.

Here’s the brutal reality: students and their families are already drowning in the financial weight of higher education. And instead of fixing its own internal mess, the university is turning around and asking us to pay more. Why should we empty our pockets further when the administration can’t even tell us where the previous money went?

We aren’t just objects on a balance sheet. We are dreamers, scholars, and fighters. And we refuse to be treated as the university’s personal piggy bank.

The Hypocrisy in Hiring (Or, Who is really running this place?)
The university claims it needs more money, but let’s look at how it spends what it already has. Out of nowhere, 186 appointments were made between 2020 and 2023, and the CAG has already raised red flags. The funniest—and most heartbreaking—part? The committee formed to investigate these shady appointments is led by people whose own promotions and appointments are deeply questionable. How can you trust a fox to guard the henhouse?

We are talking about professors who allegedly got promoted after resigning, NGO experience being magically counted as valid academic service, and interviews being conducted in the middle of a deadly COVID-19 lockdown when the rest of the world was shut down. Does that sound like fairness to you? Or does it sound like a desperate attempt to bypass the rules and help out a few favorites?

The Infrastructure Sham: Where is our money going?
We are generating ₹18–20 crores annually from the UIIT institute alone. Eighteen crores! And yet, our labs are outdated, our libraries are dusty, and our hostels lack basic amenities. Lifts have been “under construction” for years. Students with disabilities are forced to struggle daily because the administration can’t be bothered to finish a basic accessibility project. Meanwhile, officials are busy renovating their personal offices with lavish decorations.

If you’re going to charge us, at least give us a classroom that works. Is that too much to ask?

The Real Cost of Mismanagement
Let’s talk about the construction scam: a building initially estimated at ₹6 crores somehow ends up costing ₹12 crores. Who authorized the extra spending? Where did that money come from? It certainly didn’t fall from the sky—it came from the public treasury. And when the treasury runs dry, guess who they come after? Yep, us.

We are carrying the weight of financial blunders we had no part in. We didn’t approve those tenders. We didn’t sign those checks. We didn’t make those illegal appointments. So why are we the ones being punished with a fee hike?

Why we are standing up
SFI isn’t just making noise for the sake of it. We are raising our voices because the future of thousands of students is at stake. We demand a real, independent judicial inquiry—not an internal committee designed to bury the truth. We demand that all phony appointments, faked EWS certificates, and bogus NET exemptions be investigated, and those responsible be held accountable.

We demand that the university show us the receipts—every single rupee spent on construction, recruitment, and salaries.

And most importantly, we demand that the fee hike be rolled back. Now.

A Final Word to Every Student
Remember this: You didn’t create this mess. You are here to study, to grow, and to build a future. It is the administration’s job to facilitate that, not to exploit you. When they hike fees to cover their own corruption, they are stealing from your future.

We are not silent spectators. We are not cash cows. We are the soul of this university.

So, let’s stand together. Demand transparency. Demand justice.