Science costs! Students handed over rate cards for use of DU lab

New Delhi: Life just got a little tougher for science students in Delhi University. On May 1, the university announced that science students would have to pay to use laboratory instruments. Research scholars and students in the departments of physics, chemistry, botany and zoology have asked for leniency, but there is no response yet to their request.
The students were handed the rate card titled “Charges for the users of equipment maintained at University Science Instrumentation Centre” on May 1. Free till now, the facilities at USIC were installed after its establishment in1984 with the support of the University Grants Commission and an Indo-Japanese grant-in-aid.
There are different charges for students, external academics and for industries. The user charges start at Rs 20 per litre of liquid nitrogen rising to Rs 100 per hour for the circular dichroism spectroscopy, a form of light absorption spectroscopy, to Rs 2,000 per sample of single-crystal XRD. USIC has listed charges for the use of 21 instruments.
A chemistry research scholar exclaimed, “How can I pay from my pocket for these academic facilities? We need the instruments for characterisation, without which we cannot go ahead with the research. There are times when our samples are tiny and we need to undertake more scanning, each time incurring more costs. Students are paying, on average, Rs 300-400 per day to use the apparatus. Other processes like CHNSO elemental analysis are more expensive at Rs 300 per sample.”
The students are questioning why the funds received by DU under the Institution of Eminence scheme are not being used to maintain the laboratory. A representation signed by 248 students — 128 from the chemistry department, 43 from physics, 35 from botany and 42 from the zoology department — rues that the researchers weren’t consulted before such a big decision was implemented.
“We all have joined this esteemed university with enthusiasm and envisioned working hard and contributing to science. The good and easily available instrumentation facility attributes greatly towards quality research,” the representation of vice-chancellor Yogesh Singh says. “Most research groups have limited research funding and this includes the contingency amount provided to us by UGC/CSIR. The money we get isn’t sufficient even to procure chemicals, reagents, solvents, glassware, etc., but we somehow managed to continue the research. The idea to initiate the use of instruments on payment basis will immensely hamper our ability to publish data in reputed peer-reviewed journals.”
USIC director S Murugavel did not respond to calls and messages from TOI.