DDU Gorakhpur Varsity Stalls Admission over New SC/ST Certificates, Allege Students

Several students belonging to the Scheduled Castes (SC), Scheduled Tribes (ST) category held a protest demonstration at Deen Dayal Upadhyaya (DDU) Gorakhpur University on July 10 against the university administration for having sought new caste certificate for the admission.

The protesters accused the vice chancellor of depriving students of admission and being an obstacle for SC/ST students to get benefit of the reservation.

"The university administration is asking to produce new caste certificate that is not older than three years from SC/ST students. Last year, the administration had given admission based on just the slip of the certificate. But in this session, they are asking for the original certificate and if someone fails to produce it, they are neither giving admission, nor are giving time to arrange the certificate. We are protesting against this. If a student falls under this category, why should he or she have to get a new certificate? Several students also produce just the receipt of the certificate while their application is processed at the SDM’s office," said Shiv Shankar Gaur, a DDU student, while speaking to NewsClick.

Gaur added, “After we demonstrated in front of the proctor’s office and the VC’s office, the administration agreed to consider our demands and a few of the students got admission after submitting slips of the caste certificate. But we will continue our protest until every student gets fair opportunity." 

Pawan Kumar, a research scholar at DDU, who also belongs to the SC category, told NewsClick: "If someone belongs to SC/ST category, it is obvious that his caste will not change with time. But the university administration is trying to debar the students by asking for new caste certificates. When Akhilesh Yadav was in power, he asked the SC/ST students to upgrade their caste certificate every three years to avail the scholarship, but it was never mandatory for getting admission. The university administration is behaving like a dictator. If they want new caste certificates, why didn't they give prior notice to the students?"

PROTEST OVER HIKE IN MESS and HOSTEL FEES

Hundreds of students living in the boys’ hostel are also agitating against the hike in mess fees. They are still sitting on a dharna outside the administrative block, demanding reversal of the hike.

Sachin Kumar, a hostel occupant, told NewsClick, "Over the past 10 months, the mess was not functioning. From this session, they are going to start it, but will ask for huge fees. We have to pay Rs 30,000 for 10 months. Most of the students in the hostel come from villages, and are very poor. How will they be able to pay such a huge amount? For hostel as well, we used to pay Rs 2,000 per year, and now, we will have to pay Rs 6,000 per year. There is no scholarship provided by the university. Power cut have become inevitable, and continue for almost 7-8 hours. How will we study in this condition when the administration is not paying any heed to us? Rather, they are only concerned about fee hikes."