With over three lakh applications coming in for its under-graduate courses alone every year, Delhi University attracts students from across the country to fill about 50,000 seats.
While the high cut-offs can be blamed on the Class XII board examination marking scheme, the reason why students find it hard to get a seat is that though the demand has gone up in the past 17 years, no new government colleges have been opened at the University.
While the Delhi government has acknowledged the scarcity of seats and also announced plans to have more seats in Ambedkar University by opening new campuses, it came under attack on Wednesday when BJP MP Pravesh Varma pointed out in the Lok Sabha during Zero Hour that no new government college had come up in DU for the past 17 years. He also pointed out that gram sabha land for starting new colleges came under the Delhi government.
A ‘West Campus’?
Mr. Varma mooted the idea of opening a West Campus of Delhi University and said that villages of Ghumanhera, Dwarka and Najafgarh have a lot of land, which the Delhi government should give to build new colleges and develop a West Campus on the lines of the already existing North and South campuses.
While the metro has made the commute easier, students studying at the University say that if they spend less time travelling to and from college, they would be squeeze in time for a hobby or get some rest before heading out for coaching classes in the evening.
Sonali Singh, who lives is Punjabi Bagh and studies in North Campus, said that she enjoys dancing but could not join a college society because it would get very late by the time she got home. Similarly, other students feel that building a new campus will create new infrastructure and also address the issue of the lack of hostel seats.
Rohini Seth, a third year Economics student, said: “At present, the infrastructure in some North Campus colleges is crumbling. There are very few toilets and classrooms are dilapidated. DU desperately needs new institutions with state-of the art facilities.”
Taking the example of the new Deen Dayal Upadhyay college campus in Dwarka, Rohini said the building may not have heritage value but provides students with facilities that other DU colleges cannot provide.
