Water crisis: residential wardens to look into issues

Following a protest here on Monday by the hostellers of Madurai Kamaraj University over inadequate water supply, Vice-Chancellor R. Karpaga Kumaravel has initiated corrective steps.

After a meeting with senior university officials and hostellers and inspecting the hostels along with Registrar (in-charge) V. Alagappan, he announced on Tuesday that residential wardens will be appointed for every hostel so that students' grievances could be addressed at once.

A section of hostellers staged a demonstration outside the university campus on Monday demanding adequate water supply. The situation came under control when a team of university officials and police pacified the agitating students and gave an assurance to them to look into the matter.

“We don't want to downplay the issue. My first priority is students' welfare and there will not be any compromise. Works for digging new borewells in the campus has been taken up already,” Dr. Karpaga Kumaravel said.

The Vice-Chancellor said that he cancelled his engagement at Thanjavur Tamil University on Tuesday only to set right the hostel students' problem.

He was in favour of identifying young faculty members who were appointed recently and entrust them with additional responsibility by making them residential wardens for hostels.

‘Grievance boxes'

‘Grievance boxes' would be placed in all the six hostels. “Action will be taken immediately on students' grievances,” he said and wanted the students to attend grievance meetings conducted periodically. “Last Wednesday, there was a grievance meeting. But none of the students made any representation about the water problem. They could have represented the issue then instead of staging a protest now,” he said.

The Vice-Chancellor appealed to the students not to rush to the streets on any instigation from inside or outside. “I myself will visit the hostels and erring staff will be punished. Welfare of hostel students is our priority,” he said.

Meanwhile, K. Muthuchelian, Syndicate member and a senior faculty in the School of Energy and Environment, has said that the groundwater table in the university area had depleted because of the impact of IT Park coming up nearby.