Pondicherry Central University students on Tuesday staged a rally and demonstration in front of the Vice-Chancellor’s chamber, demanding hostel accommodation for first year students.
Nearly 60 students took out a rally towards the administration block after several representations to address the issue of paucity of space in hostels to accommodate students.
The inadequacy of infrastructure in the university has become acute with a large number of women still struggling to get hostel accommodation. While the admission for integrated courses is still on, the six women hostels in Pondicherry Central University are full.
“There are 13 boys’ hostel and only six girls’ hostel. Despite many seniors willing to accommodate girls in the hostel, several postgraduate students are not allowed to apply for hostel accommodation,” said a postgraduate student on condition of anonymity.
The student added that the lack of infrastructure for girls’ hostel is not something new.
“The Students Council had also given representation demanding adequate infrastructure facilities, but it has fallen on deaf ears,” said the student.
Another student underlined that the chaos in hostel accommodation began on June 19. “Though hostel accommodation for students had to be allotted on June 22, vacancies were filled only by June 22. Only two or three students from each department were given admission,” said the student.
They alleged that 103 students were given admission but later they were cancelled.
“The administration has made the students sign an undertaking that students who are accommodated at transit accommodation would not claim transportation facilities from and to the place of accommodation. The distance from the accommodation to the hostel mess is 2 km. What are the students supposed to do,” asked the protesters.
A student from Kerala after joining the course in Political Science realised that she could not get hostel accommodation. She cancelled her admission and joined a course in EFLU in Hyderabad.
“When the course-wise list of hostel vacancies was published, the girl students were given a maximum of seven vacancies and boys received as many as 35. The highest ratio of boys to girls is 7:1,” said the students.
Prabha Bharathi, President SFI, Pondicherry University, said when senior students were asking for the rights of the first year students, the Vice-Chancellor (in-charge) was not ready to listen to them.
More intake this year
When contacted, Vice-Chancellor (in-charge) Anisa Basheer Khan said the number of girl students from States other than Tamil Nadu and Puducherry is more this year. “Naturally, they need accommodation. But we have limited seats (around 350). We have turned hostel recreation rooms into dormitories and taken over other buildings to provide accommodate girls,” she said.
She added that the university administration had taken steps for a new hostel building for girls. “The first new hostel will be opened from 2018. The second phase will be ready by June 2018. For next five years, we will be comfortable.As of now, we are not able to provide accommodation to the students,” she added.
She underlined: “For any accommodation for girl students we need to look into the security point of view. We have put on the website the availability in the beginning. Nearly ₹14 crore has been sanctioned for the first phase of hostel construction and another ₹22 crore for the second phase,” she said.
K. Mahesh, Assistant Registrar, Public Relations, said that steps had been taken to resolve this issue. “Infrastructure will be ready by next academic year,” he said.
