KATHMANDU: The 13 student unions on Tuesday warned that they would be compelled to announce an agitation if the Tribhuvan University fails to scrap its decision to hike the college fees of Masters and Bachelors levels. They have given a 72-hour ultimatum to scrap the decision effective from today.

The student unions submitted a memorandum to the chancellor of the TU and informed about their demands. “If the TU ignores our demands we would soon come up with stern stir programmes”, a student leader said. The student leaders have alleged that the decision of the TU is motivating the students to move to private colleges which charge expensive fees in comparison to the government colleges affiliated to the TU.

A meeting of the TU executive council Sunday decided to revise, for the first time in 18 years, its fee structure to adapt to growing costs. The revised fee format consists of Rs 500 as the monthly tuition fee for the Bachelors level while that for the Masters’ level is Rs 700. The earlier fee format was Rs 61 as tuition fee for Bachelors level and Rs 70 for Masters. The admission fee has been fixed at Rs 500 for each level while earlier it was Rs 50.