Students of science faculty from Delhi University protesting over lab charges.
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We, the PhD students of Delhi University, held a protest on 31 May outside the vice-chancellor's office against being asked to pay for using the lab instruments for research.
Our science faculty, which includes Physics, Chemistry, Zoology, Botany etc, were always provided with free instrumentation facility. Now, suddenly, they have started charging us and that is why we are protesting.
We never received any notice as such before this that they will start charging us for the instruments.
Protest held by the students of Delhi University.
Notice issued by the University.
Notice issued by the University.
Like me, many other PhD students are also struggling with the same issue. It is difficult for us to afford all these instruments.
The price to use each sample is different. For some samples, we are supposed to pay Rs 100 and for some, it’s even Rs 1,000.
Lab instruments used by the students.
Instruments used for characterisation of the samples.
Our demand to the authorities is that they should take back the charges they have put on the instruments and it should go back to how we were working earlier.
We have been so frustrated over the last month. We should be in labs but we are protesting here. Our work is pending for a long time. Our papers are pending, there are samples we need to work on and characterisations we need to do. We want a solution to this soon so that we can go back to our work.
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