Haryana: Students Protest Against the Anti-Student Policies of Khattar Government

Students across Haryana were on streets to protest against the anti-student policies of the BJP government in the state for past one week. On Friday, thousands of students demonstrated in various locations of the state including Kurukshetra University, Maharishi Dayanand University (MDU), Rohtak and Choudhary Devilal University, Sirsa, under the banner of Student Federation of India (SFI).

“The major demands include free bus pass for all students, scholarship for the students who are from economically and socially backward communities, immediate appointment of permanent faculties and staff in the universities etc,” said Sumit Singh, State Secretary of SFI, while speaking to Newsclick.in.

So far, the SFI has submitted a couple of memorandums dated February 21, 2018, and February 23, 2018, to Chief Minister Manohar Lal Khattar and state transport minister Krishna Pawar. Main demands in the memorandum read: “Provide scholarship for the students who hail from Scheduled Caste and Backward Classes, ensure public transport buses in the rural areas and strict actions should be taken to ensure bus passes for students in the private buses, appointment faculties to the posts which are vacant in educational institutions.” Apart from these, the students also demanded that there should be anti-sexual harassment committees in every educational institution.

On the other hand, the SFI has given a call for a hunger strike to highlight the issues of nursing students including Auxiliary Nurse Midwife (ANM) and General Nursing and Midwifery (GNM) students. The hunger strike will be taking place at Rohtak from February 26 onwards. Due to the delay in exams and result declarations, nursing students are compelled to misspend their time.

“The students, who are supposed to complete their course within three and half years of time, have to spend five years to complete the course due to these delays,” Sumit added.

In a memorandum to the Chief Minister, the SFI urged the government to look into these matters and demanded a permanent policy for the examinations.

The main demands in the memorandum include “the examination should be conducted on time and mark sheets should be issued as early as possible, there should be a permanent policy to conduct examinations.”