Presidency has come up with a list of girl students for admission to its Salt Lake hostel but has not started the same exercise for the boys’ Eden Hindu Hostel because the university is yet to appoint a superintendent for the boys’ hostel.
The university has issued the list of 44 girl students and asked them to contact the superintendent for the allotment of the rooms.
The exercise for the Hindu Hostel has not started even over two months after education minister Bratya Basu told Presidency vice-chancellor Anuradha Lohia to take steps to reopen the hostel immediately.
Wards 1 and 2 of the 136-year-old Eden Hindu Hostel can accommodate around 135 students.
Around 30 students, who had barged into the Hindu Hostel on March 16 after the university authorities refused to open the hostel despite the campus being reopened from mid-February, are currently in the hostel without any mess service.
Debabrata Mondal, a postgraduate student, said the Presidency authorities had withheld all activities including admission to the hostel on the ground that teachers were not willing to take up the superintendent’s post at the hostel.
The statute of Presidency says a teacher will officiate as the hostel superintendent.
“The students cannot be forced to suffer because the university failed to appoint a hostel superintendent. Whenever we have contacted the dean of students, he comes up with the excuse that in absence of the superintendent nothing can be done. Does the university want to say that this institution is only for those who stay in Calcutta and don’t need accommodation facilities?” said Mondal, who is from Bardhaman.
Since the admission has not been started, many students from the districts are being forced to stay in PG accommodation, paying steep rents, another student said.
“In addition, students have to pay a huge amount for meals. The cost of food is very high with the rise in prices of essential items,” the student said.
On May 8, Hindu Hostel boarders wrote to minister Basu, an alumnus of the erstwhile Presidency College, that: “The admission process of Eden Hindu Hostel is still not open for the students of Presidency University. So many students who need the accommodation cannot apply. Many are facing issues while attending classes for this.”
Basu did not respond to a text message from this newspaper on Tuesday.
Teachers who used to act as the superintendent and assistant superintendent at the Hindu Hostel had resigned in January 2020 after a section of students went on an indefinite sit-in in a dean’s office for several days over alleged delay in repair of wards 3, 4 and 5 of the hostel, a university official said.
Dean of students, Arun Kumar Maity, who had issued a notice on March 12 for the appointment of a hostel superintendent at the boys’ hostel, declined to comment.
Calls and messages to VC Lohia went unanswered.
