Kirtipur, January 30:

The student bodies today agreed to end the lockout at the Department of Sociology, central campus, Tribhuvan University (TU) after the TU officials and the students bodies reached an agreement to increase admission seats to 500 from the existing 200 seats.

Protesting against the TU’s decision to enrol a limited number of students at the department, the student bodies, including two Nepal Students’ Unions, Free Students’ Union and the All-Nepal National Free Students’ Union had locked out the Sociology department on December 13.

The students’ bodies had demanded that all the students wishing to study be given an opportunity.

Pranay Singh ‘Munna’, president of the Nepal Students Union, TU central committee, said both the parties agreed to increase the fees. “We have agreed to charge Rs 4,500 as admission fees and charge Rs 1,000 in the year-end,” said Singh. Noting that most of the deserving candidates would be deprived of the opportunity to study for want of infrastructure, Singh said: “We agreed to increase the fees so that infrastructure could be built to adjust

more students.”

Meanwhile, Free Students’ Union of the Nursing Campus, Tribhuvan University Teaching Hospital, today submitted a memorandum to the dean office, Nursing Campus, urging the latter to review the decision of curtailing the regular quotas. The FSU threatened to padlock the dean’s office and campus chief’s office for an indefinite period of time from February 1 if the demand is not met.

According to a press release issued by the FSU here today, the dean’s office had, in a notice issued recently, decided to turn the 12.5 per cent regular quota of Proficiency Certificate Level into a full fee-paying quota.