Students of a private pharmacy college staged a demonstration in front of the District Collectorate demanding actions against the institution for extorting high fee from the hostel students here on Monday.

According to one of the students, around 80 male and more than 300 female students are staying in the hostels of the Cheran College of Pharmacy run by the Cheran Institute of Health Sciences at Thelungupalayam near Perur. He said that the college management is collecting exorbitant fee from the students.

“We are forced to pay half of the fee for the next semester while we are still in the current semester. Only then are our hall tickets given to us,” he said.

He further claimed that the administration is collecting unnecessary fee of up to Rs.2000 from the students per month, for cultural programes, which adds up to Rs.20,000 each year.

One of the girl students who participated in the protest alleged that the administration is also not providing the basic facilities including sanitation and healthy surrounding for the students. “The toilets are not clean. The hostel premises are dirty and we are forced to live in unhealthy surrounding in the college,” she said.

The students also petitioned the District Collector Archana Patnaik in this regard.