Patiala, Aug. 19 -- Though Punjabi University, Patiala, on Tuesday announced a partial rollback of the fee hike for various academic courses, the students continued their week-long sit-in outside the office of vice-chancellor Jagdeep Singh, demanding a complete withdrawal of the fee hike. The students had gheraoed Punjab health minister Dr Balbir Singh during his visit to the university last week. The university had last week increased fees for various courses by nearly 17%. The students have described the hike as unjustified and unaffordable, particularly for students from economically weaker sections. In a statement, the VC said the university had decided to partially roll back the hike. He said the effective increase, which comes after a gap of nearly five years, will now stand at approximately 7.5%. Justifying the hike, the VC said the university had been facing financial constraints for several years and needed to generate additional resources. According to the university, even after revision, its hostel fees remained considerably lower than those of Panjab University, Chandigarh, and Guru Nanak Dev University, Amritsar. Regarding partial withdrawa, the VC said the decision was taken keeping in view the socio-economic background of the student community. However, the protesting students said the partial rollback was not acceptable and that their sit-in would continue until their demands were met. According to the students, they would intensify the agitation from Thursday. Gurdas, a member of the Fee Hike Opposition Front, said, "For some courses, the fee hike is more than double."...