Mangaluru : The Akhil Bharatiya Vidyarthi Parishad (ABVP) staged a protest on the Mangalagangotri campus of Mangalore University on Monday urging the university to reduce payment category fees of various postgraduate courses for 2015-16.

They squatted in front of the Mangala auditorium, where a six-day centralised counselling for admission to postgraduate courses began from Monday.

In a memorandum submitted to the university, Jayesh P.K., city unit secretary, ABVP, said that the university had reduced the fees hiked only for merit category seats but not for payment category seats. According to the university now, the hike in fees for merit category seats was 10 to 12 per cent from what it was during 2014-15. He said that all courses had limited number of merit category seats.

Hence all applicants could not get seats under merit category. There were many students from economically poor sections of the society who would be deprived from getting admission as the payment category fees still stood high.

The memorandum said that fees for Applied Botany and Applied Zoology courses now stood at Rs. 48,795 from Rs. 39,280 in the last academic year. The fee for Physics had been increased from Rs. 41,280 last academic year to Rs. 51,795 in the current academic year.

Likewise the fee for Mathematics had been hiked from Rs. 43,280 to Rs. 53,795. It said that the fees for Computer Science and Physical Education courses have been hiked from Rs. 45,280 to Rs. 53,795.

It said that if the university reduced the fees for payment category also it would help many poor students to pursue higher education. Otherwise only some would have access to it.

P.S. Yadapadithaya, Registar (administration), who received the memorandum, told the students that he could not take a decision on reducing the fees for payment category and the syndicate would have to do it.