Important query related to NRI Students in India.
Important query related to NRI Students in India.
Respected Sir,
I am a 4th year BBA/LLB student in a University in Mumbai. I am born and brought up in another country out of Asia, and came down to Mumbai at the age of 19 after passing the 12th equivalent, for pursuing my higher studies here.
I did not have the right to have Residence card in my country of birth till completing 21years of age but the Indian Embassy had provided me a “Certificate of Indian Citizenship” when I was 2 years of age. For the same, my quest is that do I fall under NRI category?
When taking admission in the said University, I have been asked to submit a residence proof otherwise 5times of all kind of University payment is mandatory for me. As I had no residence proof, I was told to write a letter that I am NRI and I that want to take admission under NRI Quota. My admission was taken after quite confusion on faces, an interview with the top head of University… but no paper provided to me mentioning my category. But since then, I have to pay 5times of any University payment, whether college fees, exam fees, ATKT paper fees, Library refundable Deposit, late fees, form charges, lost ID card charges and even compulsory Gymkhana subscription fees respectively. Of course I do get proper receipts but no written policy is given. And it is to mention that I am the FIRST and ONLY student paying 5times the fees in the entire University spread all over India till now. For the same, my question is that Am I not entitled to get written statements/ policies from the University for the kind of exceptional admission I am given?
As I was new to the Indian system, I went along and months went on. After a year or so, I started going in the office of the University to ask under what rule was I to pay 5times. At that time a newly department head was in place, a person who wasn’t there at the time of my admission, but well aware of my situation. Many times that (new) person told me that this University is controlled under the University of Mumbai and it has to follow their rules; and sometimes this is a fully autonomous university with its own rules that no one can question and I am paying so much following to the letter I had submitted and I am not eligible to normal admission unless I have continuously spent 5yeard in the Indian Territory. This became pretty confusing. Several approach and documents submissions did not give me a satisfactory response. I searched for the rule, for concerned offices and authorities respectively, approached few advocates, wrote letters and RTI applications, but still no information from anywhere.
I had shared my worries with a Third Party Complain website and thereafter, the person in question told me quite different things denying all previous statements in presence of a respective staff member, and alleging that I had no tangible proofs of the spoken words: This University is a full-fledged Government University and we make no rules, all rules come from the Indian Government, and we are just following. If you want to claim anything, you have to go to Court and wait for whenever Court will respond, and that too if.
Then I asked: isn’t there any other benefit for a NRI quota student paying so much? The always spontaneous person in question replied: There is nothing like Quota here everyone is equal.
So again I asked to be provided with the Government rule under which I have to pay so much, still and always with utmost respect that I always give. Meanwhile I had sent a RTI application to three authorities each in the University, sourced through Internet. So the 30th day of the application came when the office called me over and handed me a photocopy of said rules and Government policy attached, dated 1994, after so much time and pain. Then again, I requested for the University stamp for approval, for not being victim of “no-proof” again. They said that the Law College is not in permitted to give any University stamp, moreover I had not mentioned to want “approved” rule in my RTI Application. If I still want a stamp, I have to go and manage on my own with the Person at Head of the University.
The reason of me doing all this is that I come from a poor country where the currency is very very low compared to the Rupee respectively. Therefore paying 5times is really heavy for me. I live alone and struggle for earning at the same time due to so much of expense. It would be really different if my parents were earning in Dollars or in Pounds… Here my question is that if banks and all other government institutions do not even take Tax from students out of humane ethics, how can the Education institutes charge us this much? What is our sin?
I highly respect the fee structure set by the Indian Government respectively and I see my Law career and service in India itself. But what if I was a foreigner, would I have to pay 10 times? Paying high fees is the Law with all due respect, but is this Natural Justice too? I read that India encourages Indian overseas to come and relocate in India, but my story proves me not. Apologies but I have no means of being disrespectful.
We people are not ever accepted as native in our birth place out of India so we come to find our Peers in India. But the sad scene is that here too we are tagged as NRIs. So where can we go and have the right to pay local fees in life?
This very same matter is published in Times of India too:
Someone please look upon us. All NRIs are not rich and are not big investors and donors. For e.g. I and many of my friends came to live, study and work in India, our country of origin: “Exam pati jay pachhi aapde Desh jaavu chhe.” But because of the high fees, some helplessly changed their career to escape the same, and some returned back, deceived.
This is a brief of my story. Dear Correspondent and Respected Authority, please look into the matter and give me some help and guidance. I am not able to find a way out, nor find the right concerned authority under which this matter falls. I got no response from many authorities respectively, maybe due to the complexity of the matter. Whereas the Higher and Technical Education Department and others respectively are concerned, the reply said that they are not the concerned authority for the matter…
In wait of some hope of justice, some solutions, some review of the Law if that is, or any other help I should deserve. If not for me, at least for the coming students to be subject of payment upon their respective backgrounds rather than upon a standard old law that nobody has questioned, with all due respect to it.
Request you to please send me the reply through registered post if possible on the address mentioned below. Thank you very much.
Much obliged.
Yours truly and faithfully,
.
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