Students of IIM Calcutta have accused it of being “unfair” in charging four executive MBA students who stayed back on the campus after the completion of the course because of the lockdown Rs 500 daily.

Some students wrote to the administration on behalf of the four stuck on the campus, saying “it is highly unfair on part of the institute to levy backdated charges on these 4 MBAEx students”.

“It is only on 5th May that they have been informed that they may be charged for their stay post April 5…. It is highly unfortunate that the institute had to resort to such predatory practices in these testing times,” they said in their letter.

The date of convocation was April 5. An executive MBA student in the 2019-20 batch paid Rs 22 lakh for the year-long course.

After Metro enquired with IIM-C director Anju Seth about the charge of Rs 500 and the allegation that the four students had not been allowed to leave campus without making the payment, the director issued a clarification.

“I am surprised that these four students have any concern about a fee payment since I have personally assured them that they will not have to face any problem, and also welcomed them to stay as long as they need. No fee will be charged for an involuntary stay, as is only fair to the students. It is completely untrue that anyone has been stopped from leaving the campus for want of payment,” Seth said.

A professor said it was unethical to charge the students during such times. “I don’t know what stopped the administration from being generous towards the students who paid Rs 22 lakh,” he said.

The outgoing batch has 68 students and of them five remained on the campus. Apart from the four, one person had sought permission before the lockdown for an extended stay because his wife was expecting.

Under normal circumstances, the batch would have vacated the campus after collecting the degrees on April 5. The convocation got stalled because of the lockdown.

“Unfortunately, owing to the pandemic and subsequent lockdown, the four students who were in the final stages of packing and leaving got stranded. We would like to make it very clear that they had no intention of staying back beyond April 5. They did not ‘choose’ to be stranded on campus!” the students said in their letter to the director.

“With regard to these four students, there appears to have been some miscommunication about the permissions they sought and received for an extended stay on campus that in part arose because one of their classmates explicitly sought and received such permission,” director Seth said.