Bangalore: The State Government has withdrawn the system of collecting user charges from around 15,000 BA, B.Com., and B.Sc. students in government colleges in the State.

Higher Education Minister D.H. Shankaramurthy told presspersons here on Monday that some years ago he led an agitation by students seeking the withdrawal of the user charges introduced by the S.M. Krishna government. While arts and commerce students were paying Rs. 1,000, B.Sc. computer science students were paying Rs. 3,000 for using laboratory and other facilities in colleges.

He said the department had arrived at a notional income of Rs. 1.20 crore from user charges.

Inquiry committee

The Minister said Governor T.N. Chaturvedi would appoint an inquiry committee to go into the irregularities in the financial affairs of the Women's University at Bijapur and the appointments that had been made there. The Akhil Bharat Vidyarthi Parishad had launched an agitation for ordering an inquiry into the allegations.

Mr. Shankaramurthy said he had sent another proposal to the Governor for ordering an inquiry into allegations levelled by the Tumkur University Registrar against Vice-Chancellor O. Anantharamaiah.

There was no proposal to name any university in the State after political leaders. Tumkur University would not be named after the former Prime Minister H.D. Deve Gowda, he said.

The Minister said he had begun the process of initiating a dialogue with some managements of professional colleges on ensuring justice to students, at least in the next academic year.

Industries were the major beneficiaries of higher education and, hence, he would request them to subsidise the fees of students.

He said there were some vacant seats in engineering colleges, and students who passed the recent pre-university supplementary examination would be considered for those seats if they made it into the merit list.

On the threat by the suspended BJP MLC, G. Janardhan Reddy, that he would provide concrete evidence for his charge that Rs. 150 crore had been paid as a bribe to Chief Minister H.D. Kumaraswamy and two of his Cabinet colleagues, Mr. Shankaramurthy said it would not have any impact on the stability of the government.

Both the BJP and the Janata Dal (S) were working in a united manner and one MLC could not wreck the government.

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