Parents at a meeting in front of Delhi Public School in Dhanbad on Sunday. Picture by Gautam Dey

Dhanbad, May 3: Parents protesting against the tuition fee hike at Delhi Public School, Dhanbad, stepped up their agitation today by floating a forum to press for their demands.

The guardians formed DPS Abhivavak Sangh at a meeting in front of the main gate of the school this morning. More than 200 parents attended the meeting.

They decided to first knock on the doors of the district administration to settle the issue at the local level. Thereafter they, under the aegis of DPS Abhivavak Sangh, would move the Jharkhand Education Tribunal if the school authorities did not roll back the hike.

DPS has increased its tuition fees by 45 per cent to meet the increased salary of teaching and non-teaching employees as per the recommendations of the Sixth Pay Commission. However, parents are against such a steep hike and have taken the protest path.

Giving details of the proceedings of the meeting, M Karim, the secretary of the newly constituted forum, said the organisation decided not to pay the increased fee until a decision was taken by the higher authorities in this regard. They would discuss the matter with the authorities of DPS society.

Meanwhile, as per the instruction of Dhanbad deputy commissioner Ajay Kumar Singh, the parents decided to meet the additional district magistrate (law and order), Rajmohan Tiwari, on Monday to seek his intervention.

A delegation of the guardians had earlier met Singh during which they had referred to the undertaking that the school authorities had submitted to the district administration, saying that they would not carry out a fee hike without its permission.