10% Hike on FTII Entrance Exam Fee, Students Go on Hunger Strike

The Film and Television Institute of India (FTII) student body has accused the administration of the Institute of making the entrance examination a profit-making exercise for the high entrance test fee from candidates.

Arguing on this, the students found certain data that they obtained using the Right to Information. The same revealed that the institute had made a profit of more than a crore (Rs 1.39 crore in 2018, Rs 1.17 crore in 2018). The student body also urged that the high entrance fee stands in the way of financially weaker sections who want to appear for the test.

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Reacting to this, four FTII students have gone on an indefinite hunger strike to stand against the entrance fee hike. Along with the entrance fee hike, the administration had also increased the overall fee for different programmes available at the institute.

FTII and Satyajeet Ray Film and Television Institute (SRFTI) have been conducting a joint admission test for respective institutes since 2017. This joint test is conducted jointly and students are invited for admissions on the basis of merit and interview/auditions at the respective institutes.

FTII has divided the courses into three groups for which the application fee is Rs 4,000. Students who wish to apply for just one course have to pay Rs 4,000 while students who want to apply for two or courses have to pay Rs 8,000 and Rs 10,000 respectively. This year the test was to be organised by FTII. Candidates belonging to the SC and ST categories have to pay Rs 1,250, Rs 2,500 and Rs 3,125 respectively.

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As per the RTI information gathered, FTII had extracted Rs 1.45 crore from 5,293 applicants in 2018 when the JET was started at the institute. It had spent Rs 28.41 lakh on organising the test. Hence. the institute earned Rs 1.17 crore in profits.

In 2019 the FTII has collected Rs 1.68 crore as a fee from aspirants fro JET. However, it has spent only Rs 29.61 lakh, therefore making a profit of Rs 1.38 crore. Along with this, the students have also opposed the 10 percent hike in the annual fees for the upcoming batch for different courses.

Bhupendra Kainthola, FTII Director has mentioned that the hunger strike is "totally unjustified" and that the entrance test fee has been introduced for the best interests of the students. He further added that the candidates who applied for JET 2018 and 2019 and could not qualify and applies again for JET 2020 will have to pay the exact same amount of fees for the third consecutive year. The decision of the 10% hike was an old one, mentioned the director.