THANE: Close to 100 parents of students studying in city’s Rainbow International School, who claim to have been imposed with a 40% fee hike over the past two years, staged a protest against this injustice outside the Thane Municipal Corporation , on Wednesday.While parents of this Brahmand-based CBSE School assert that while they have been facing this exorbitant fee hike every year, they realised the gravity of the situation when they get together and found out that this increase in fees was discussed with any parents group.“Every year we have been paying the school Rs10,000 more than the previous year. When we voiced our issue about this with the teachers and management, we were told that we alone have this issue and other parents were willingly paying the fees,” said a parent.“When we got together earlier this year, we realised that all the parents were facing the same problem and there was no PTA body formed so that these changes in fee structure could be discussed before its finalization. On hearing about our plan for Wednesday’s protest, the school hurriedly released a list of PTA members at 8pm on Tuesday night,” he added.After three months of placing their grievances with the management in vain, these parents approached the President of Indiawide Parents Association Advocate Anubha Sahai, who not only took their complaints to the education minister Vinod Tawde amongst other officials, but also helped them stage a protest at the TMC headquarters on Wednesday afternoon.“In addition to hiking the students’ fees by 15 to 20% per year, the management have not been able to provide them with the basic facilities all these years including a computer lab, which has just been set up. Once they approached me, we jotted down all these grievances and met with the education officer, the education minister amongst other officials,” Adv. Sahai said.“With these efforts leading nowhere, we had to take the protest to the corporation. Over 100 parents took part in the the protest which started at 11am at the TMC office and stayed there till we met with the deputy commissioner at around 1pm. Once he assured us that he would conduct a hearing where all parties including the school management, the parents the education officer, etc will be present, we called off the protest,” she added.Speaking about this incident, civic deputy commissioner Manish Joshi said, “These parents have various complaints regarding fee hike and lack of facilities that have gone unheard for a long time. I have asked them for a detailed presentation on these issues and will then arrange a hearing with all the stakeholders, so that they can come up with an amicable solution together.”

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