The blockade set up by guardians on NH31 on Thursday. Picture by Kundan Yolmo

Siliguri, May 7: The tripartite meeting on school fee hike failed today, prompting guardians and members of the Chhatra Parishad to set up blockades that affected traffic in several parts of the town.

The blockade set up by parents, when they heard that the schools want the new fees to be paid, lasted for more than two hours and was withdrawn at 9.20pm.

The Chhatra Parishad, which is the student wing of the Congress, has called a students’ strike tomorrow. It has threatened to call a general strike if no solution is arrived at within seven days.

Tomorrow, the parents will meet at Kanchenjungha Stadium to chalk out the future course of action, said Malay Mukherjee, a spokesperson of the Guardians’ Forum.

The tripartite meeting between the school heads, guardians and administrative officers started at 4pm at the Circuit House in Siliguri. A four-member team represented the parents while 400 others waited outside the gate.

The meeting was “cordial”, but the waiting crowd turned violent when the representatives came out around 6.30pm and briefed them on the outcome.

Debabrata Mitra, a representative of the guardians, said the schools had agreed to inform each individual parent in writing about the fee structure of the last and the current academic sessions, the salary structure of teachers and other expenditure of the institutes before the summer recess. “If the parents are dissatisfied, they can individually approach the school heads for clarification,” said Mitra.

What infuriated the waiting guardians was that the schools wanted the new fees to be paid as teachers have already started getting their revised salaries. Parents have refused to pay the new fees, saying that a solution is yet to be reached.

The guardians blocked the circuit house entrance and started demonstrating. They even blocked the vehicle of Surendra Gupta, the district magistrate of Darjeeling.

While the participants of the meeting stayed inside, Pradhannagar police escorted Gupta out of the circuit house. Jyotishman Chatterjee, the additional district magistrate of Siliguri who was at the meeting, said: “The meeting was cordial but as these are missionary schools, we do not have any say in their governance. We can only work as a facilitator to end the impasse.”

The heads of five schools — Don Bosco School, St Joseph Convent Matigara, Auxilium Convent, Jeremel Academy and Nirmala Convent — were present at the meeting as was the subdivisional officer of Jalpaiguri and the additional superintendent of police of Siliguri.

By 7pm, the protest had spilled over to adjoining NH31 that connects Siliguri to the Northeast. Parents sat on the highway, demanding that Nurul Islam, the mayor of Siliguri Municipal Corporation intervene.

“We waited for such a long time hoping that there would be a solution. The schools postponed the solution giving lame excuses. The summer vacations will start in 10 days and the school heads hope that the movement will fizzle out by then. But we won’t give up,” said Shreyashi Bhattacharya, a guardian.

The Chhatra Parishad, which had been agitating against the fee hike separately, blocked Hashmi Chowk at 7.45pm for 30 minutes, creating heavy traffic congestion on Hill Cart Road, Sevoke Road, Bidhan Road and Kutcheri Road.

“We protest this nonchalant attitude of the schools,” said Sheikh Mukhtar Ahmed, a state secretary of the Chhatra Parishad. “We have called a students’ strike tomorrow in Siliguri and Bhaktinagar and want to make it clear that if the issue is not resolved within a week, we will go for a general strike.”