IIM Calcutta Lockdown Fee Controversy: Director Issues Clarification, “No Additional fee will be charged”

In light of the Coronavirus pandemic, a nationwide lockdown was imposed, following which students of the Indian Institute of Management - Calcutta were asked to leave for their homes and commence with the virtual classes for the remaining term.

However, due to the unstructured lockdown and termination of transportation post lockdown, some students were left with no other choice than to stay back on campus.

Earlier, IIM Calcutta students had asked for fee waiver citing the unforeseen challenges which they might face due to the COVID-19 pandemic.

During this, a situation arose in IIM Calcutta in which students of the institute accused the authorities of pushing ‘unfair’ charges against four executive MBA students who stayed back on the campus after the successful completion of their course. 

Students of the institute wrote several letters to the authority on behalf of the four accused students stating that the institute was relying on unfair means to levy backdated charges on the four accused MBA students. The students mentioned that the accused students were charged INR 500 due to the lockdown daily rules.

“Unfortunately, owing to the pandemic and subsequent lockdown, the four students who were in the final stages of packing and leaving got stranded. We would like to make it very clear that they had no intention of staying back beyond April 5. They did not ‘choose’ to be stranded on campus!” the students said in their letter to the director.

Following this, the director of the institute issued a clarification, “I am surprised that these four students have any concern about a fee payment since I have personally assured them that they will not have to face any problem, and also welcomed them to stay as long as they need. No fee will be charged for an involuntary stay, as is only fair to the students. It is completely untrue that anyone has been stopped from leaving the campus for want of payment.”

The director also said that with regard to these four students, there has been some miscommunication about the permissions they sought and received for an extended stay on campus that in part arose because one of their classmates explicitly sought and received such permission.