Ravneet Singh

Tribune News Service

Patiala, May 28

Punjabi University has hiked the fee for issuing educational transcripts to students applying from India. The university will now collect an overall fee of Rs 20,000 for one set of any number of transcripts per student instead of the previously followed process of collection of fee on the basis of number of transcripts.

The new orders will come into effect from June 1. In a notice released today, the controller of examinations said, “Fee of Rs 20,000 for sending transcripts abroad will be collected from all students irrespective of whether they are applying from India or abroad. A student will be charged Rs 5,000 for every extra set.” The university will collect separate fee for a form and courier service.

Till now the university has been charging Rs 500 per transcript, Rs 1,200 for the courier service along with Rs 100 per form from students applying from India. Those applying from abroad were charged an overall fee of Rs290 (about Rs 21,000) for preparation and dispatch of documents. This is while the university normally gets nearly 60-70 applications every working day.

“This is an exponential increase in fee. Most students undergo graduation or postgraduation courses. The total fee to be paid, as per current rates, for semester-based three-year bachelor and two-year master courses is about Rs 6,000 apart from form and courier fee. The university has now hiked the fee more than three times for us,” said a student. “The university is cash-strapped. They seem to be trying to collect funds with such ‘unwarranted’ hikes,” said another student.

Controller Examinations Dr JIS Khattar said, “Till now the Indian students had to travel from far-off distances to present their passports on the campus for verification. With this an effort has been made to make it easy for them. Therefore, a lump sum has been decided and no verification of passport will be done.”