Fee glare

Dhanbad, March 8: De Nobili School, CFRI, busy tackling parents’ grievances about hiking fees, has served a notice on 10 students alleging they had defaulted on payments for the 2010-11 session.

A day after a divisional bench of chief justice Bhagawati Prasad admitted a writ petition challenging the order of the Jharkhand Education Tribunal (JET) on the fee hike, the Digwadih school management also warned parents not to send their children to school if they failed to clear the dues, which included admission charges and monthly fees for the 2010-11 session, by March 11.

Interestingly, 35 out of the total 2,240 students studying at De Nobili School, CFRI (Digwadih), have not paid their fees for the 2010-11 session to protest against the 45 per cent fee hike implemented by the school management.

This apart, 24 others had minor outstandings with the school.

“We are ready to accept the outstanding dues in installments from students who are poor,” said the treasurer of the De Nobili group of schools, Father Jerry, alleging that only a handful of parents were misleading others in not paying fees.

“Initially we had 380 names on our list of defaulters. But after March 1, the numbers have come down to 59. We will serve notices to all defaulting students within a day or two,” the Father added.

On allegations of Parents’ Association that the school management was violating provisions of Right to Education by withholding results of defaulter students, Father Jerry said: “The provisions of the Right to Education Act state that free education would be provided to only 25 per cent students who belonged to BPL families.”

While only five out of 2,000 students have defaulted on their fees in De Nobli, CMRI (Dhanbad), a majority of students at De Nobili schools in Mugma and Maithon hadn’t paid their fees.

While the parents are protesting against the hike, the school management has maintained that such an increase was necessary to pay teachers’ salaries as per the recommendations of the sixth pay commission.

Secretary of Dhanbad Abhivak Mahasangh Manoj Mishra, however, termed the fee hike as illegal.

“We want deputy commissioner Sunil Kumar Burnwal to intervene in the matter,” Mishra said.