Students of Hyderabad University are alleging that the authorities are forcibly evicting students and locking up hostel rooms to harass students.
On Wednesday, fresh protests broke out at the university campus as authorities allegedly began locking up rooms. Students say that the Chief Warden Nagaraju had issued notice to students, a copy of which is with The News Minute, to vacate the hostel.
The notice, issued on May 2, asks students who want to remain on campus during the vacation to request permission for rooms provided they have a valid reason to stay on. Students say that according to UGC guidelines rent cannot be charged from students regardless of which community they belong to.
S. Munna, PhD scholar and ASA member said that the move was a ploy to harass students, especially those who belong to disadvantaged communities and poorer students, who remain at the university to access the library and reading room.
“In the name of renovation, the university is conspiring to evict students who are studying to appear for competitive exams such as the UGC-NET, UPSC, Telangana police exams, bank, and other university exams,” Munna said.
There was no other explanation for the move, he said: “Nowhere in the history of the university has a single student shifted to any hostel because of repairs and renovation, that too, to paint the walls in the corridors not in rooms.”
Munna also said that the during the past year the university had supplied drinking water from outside only to very few hostels and offices. He alleged that during the exams there was no power supply even though generator facilities were available.
“They want to send students by making them suffer and they are still doing it. We aren’t asking them to repair or repaint the walls. We are just asking for our rights – we want access to the library and our own departments’ faculty by staying in our officially allotted in hostels,” Munna said.
Another ASA member Sreerag told The News Minute, “For the first time in the history of the university, students are being forcibly evicted from the campus during vacation.”
He said that the university was claiming that it was necessary as there was a shortage of water supply in the city and therefore the university. He pointed out that even large apartment complexes near the university campus did not face a water crisis. He alleged that the university had not paid its water bills.
“If (VC) Apparao can renovate his house within three days with lavish fittings and furniture, and pass a resolution to spend excess amount of money to strengthen security, why can’t he pay the pending water bills and have the water supply restored? His intentions of evicting students are quite clear,” Sreerag said.
Students of the life sciences department have different views. A student who declined to be named said he doesn’t think there was anything wrong with the university’s decision. He said students are supposed to go home during vacations.
The student said: “The administration had not asked them to go but take permission to stay in the hostel. If they had genuine reasons, they were given permission to stay back.”
He adds, “Here people have started to force the administration to get things done in their favor. Already there is a huge water crisis and the university is paying lot of money for water tankers, but no one is bothered about it.”
The University Chief Spokesperson, Professor Vipin Srivastava, told The News Minute that notices had been sent out in October to vacate hostels as there was a water shortage. "The Chief warden sent a notice in April to vacate the hostel, but said that students who had valid reason could stay after writing a letter which had to be endorsed by the dean or head of the particular department.”
He said that students were asked to vacate the hostels by May 5. He said over 200 students including PhD scholars had applied and that they were allowed to stay. and these students were apart from Phd scholars. “This is standard procedure followed by every university and we did this to save water, and to carry out maintenance and repairs.”