RAHIM YAR KHAN   -   The Khawaja Fareed University of Engineering and Technology (KFUEIT) administration is forcibly collecting transport and internet fees from the students who are not utilizing these facilities, parents of some students alleged at a press conference here on Saturday.

Muhammad Akmal, Mian Shahid,Shehzad Younus representing a number of other parents, informed that the KFUEIT has issued fee vouchers for the second semester of different disciplines and Rs5,000 transport fee and Rs1,500 internet fee have been included in the vouchers. They said that their children neither use transport, nor internet but they are being forced to pay it. They criticized that how KFUEIT administration has right to collect these fees from the students who did not utilize these facilities.

They asserted that only those students are eligible to pay these fees who enjoy the university transport and internet facilities. They said that with other parents they met administration including registrar and director students affairs many times to resolve the issue, but to no avail. They said that when they tried to meet with vice chancellor, they were denied access to the VC. They charged that since 2014, the KFUEIT administration has increased the fees up to 150 pc approximately as compare to other universities of technology of the province. They pointed out that according to KFUEIT, there are more than 6,000 students in the institution and the total transport and internet fees amounting to Rs39 million in view of the total number students.

They raised the question that on one hand, the KFUEIT is charging irrelevant fees while on the other hand, it has failed to provide proper facilities to students for experiments in laboratories due to which an incident occurred on June 12 in which 16 students affected in minor blast.

They further alleged that in April, a student was fined Rs15,000 on charges of using unfair means in exams and when he tried to appeal to the VC, he was threatened by the registrar and later abused and tortured by security guards.

Students could not talk for resolution of their problems in the university as they are threatened that they will be expelled from the university or their results will be changed.

When contacted KFUEIT spokesperson Shahid Durrani said that he will discuss all the allegations of the parents who spoke at the press conference with the departments concerned of the university and then he will able to present the university’s version.