Vadodara: After getting representations against hike in convocation fees that students are supposed to pay ahead of the 66th annual convocation, M S University officials have announced that they will keep the component of lifetime alumni fee optional.
The university had earlier issued a notification whereby all graduating students were supposed to pay Rs1,410 including Rs410 for degree certificates and Rs1,000 for lifetime alumni fees.
But a group of senate members, including Narendra Ravat and Kapil Joshi apart from a couple of student leaders made a representation against the hike in charges.
On Friday evening, MSU vice-chancellor professor Parimal Vyas announced that while the university will collect Rs410 for degree certificates, the lifetime alumni fees which were earlier mandatory for all students to pay will now be optional for the students.
"It is very unfortunate that such issues are being raked up. The proposal of collecting lifetime alumni fees ahead of the annual convocation ceremonies was not only passed by the syndicate but also senate," said Vyas, adding that by collecting the lifetime alumni fees, the university wants to create a database of all the alumni of the university.
"We are not making any corpus out of it. Our intentions are very clear that we want our alumni to remain associated with us for their entire lifetime. While we will be appealing all our passing graduates to support this initiative, if a student is not in condition to financially support us, we are not going to impose anything on him or her," said Vyas.
The university had last year kept the lifetime alumni fees voluntary. But it had received very poor response as only nine students had come forward to get registered themselves as alumni.
