Private university students continue VAT protests

Students protesting against VAT on tuition fees at private universities have held demonstrations on the streets of three cities in Bangladesh on the first day of their three-day strike.

The agitations in Dhaka on Saturday, however, did not severely hamper traffic like Thursday as the roads were less crowded on the weekend.
 
The demonstrations in Chittagong did not last very long following peaceful police intervention, but the protests in Sylhet continued for several hours.
 
After Wednesday’s clash between East West University students and police during demonstrations at Rampura, agitated students of the private universities brought Dhaka to its knees on Thursday by taking to the streets crippling traffic.
 
The students have been protesting since the government imposed a 7.5 percent VAT on tuition fee at private universities, and medical and engineering colleges in the budget for 2015-16 fiscal.
 
The National Board of Revenue (NBR) on Thursday afternoon clarified that the universities would have to pay the tax as it was already included in the tuitions fees they charge their students. VAT would not be separately realised from the students, it added.
 
But the assurances failed to satisfy the students as they on Friday announced a three-day strike starting from Saturday across all private universities, medical and engineering colleges in the country.
 

Around 11:30am, students of several universities at the capital’s Dhanmondi, Sobhanbagh and Kolabagan area formed human chains and took out processions.

World University students organised a human chain protest near the LabAid Hospital at Dhanmondi’s Mirpur Road around 12pm.

After being joined by students of Eastern University, they later blocked the road for some time before responding to police’s request to withdraw the blockade.

Then they held another human chain which ended around 1:30pm.

Around the same time, students of Daffodil University organised a human chain on Mirpur Road and students of State University at Dhanmondi-27.

North South University student Habibul Hasan, who have been demonstrating since Thursday, told

bdnews24.com that they had no programme scheduled for Saturday.

“But we will sit with our university management later this evening. We’ll announce our programmes on Sunday based on the decisions taken at the meeting,” he said.

In Chittagong, students of BGC Trust University blocked the highway to Cox’s Bazar at Chandonaish around 11am, stopping traffic.

They cleared the road after about 30 minutes following police’s request, Chandonaish police OC Abul Kashem Bhuiyan said.

However, the university’s BBA student Md Sakib told

bdnews24.com that they would hold similar protests on Sunday and Monday.​

​In Sylhet, students of eight private universities and medical colleges demonstrated by blocking the road in front of the Central Shaheed Minar at Chouhatta from 12pm to around 3pm.

Students of Sylhet Metropolitan University, Leading University, International University, North East University, Jalalabad Ragib-Rabeya Medical College, Sylhet Women’s Medical College and North East Medical College and Parkview Medial College took part in the agitation.

Some of the students said they were not satisfied by the government’s explanations and vowed to continue their protest until the 7.5 percent VAT was withdrawn.

A student, Rimon Ahmed said, “This year the university authorities will pay the VAT and from next year the burden will fall on the students– we won’t accept that.”

The private university students agitating in Dhaka had also made the similar observation.

Jotirmoy Chakrabarty, the coordinator of ‘No VAT on Education’, a platform for the agitating students, told

bdnews24.com on Friday: "The government and NBR’s explanation is very shrewd. Education is a basic right. We want no VAT imposed on it."