NTA has hiked fee of 2024 CUET-PG application forms, alleges SFI

New Delhi: The Students' Federation of India (SFI) on Friday alleged that the National Testing Agency has increased the fee of 2024 CUET-PG application forms.

In a letter to NTA Director Subodh Kumar Singh, the student body's Delhi state committee said the fee hike is a "blatant attack" on higher eduction opportunities for students in the country. It is "anti-student" and a step towards "privatisation" of education, it said.

There was no immediate response from the agency to the letter or the allegation of the students' wing of the CPI(M), even as an SFI delegation met the senior advisor, the National Testing Agency (NTA), HC Gupta, on the issue and demanded the rollback of the "fee hike".

The Common University Entrance Test (CUET)-PG for admission to postgraduate programmes in universities across the country is conducted by the NTA.

In a statement, the SFI alleged that the NTA has hiked the fee for CUET-PG application forms by Rs 200 for all categories "due to lack of funds" and it will impact especially those belonging to marginalised communities and from backward regions.

"The NTA highlighted that enough funds are not being released...which is leading to such hikes," it said.

The agency, the SFI claimed, has increased the fee by Rs 200 for all categories.

The current fee for general category students is Rs 1,200, for students from economically weaker sections and other backward classes Rs 1,000, for those from scheduled castes and tribes Rs 900, and Rs 800 for persons with disabilities, it claimed.

"The SFI strongly opposes this logic and calls it out for being another step that the government at large is taking towards the complete privatisation of education," the SFI said in its letter to NTA Director Singh.

The delegation that met Gupta at the NTA office comprised SFI members Mehina (Delhi University), Nadia (Jamia Millia Islamia), Sagar (Jawaharlal Nehru University) and Vibhu (Ambedkar University).

In a related development, students' outfits AISA and ABVP highlighted the non-inclusion of the Jawaharlal Nehru University in the list of colleges taking CUET-PG 2024 application forms on the CUET website.

The university has now notified that it is a technical glitch and it will be rectified within a couple of days, the students' outfits said.