Rajendra Institute of Medical Sciences (RIMS) has sacked 25 cleaners, who used to keep the rooms of 12 hostels on the campus tidy for more than 20 years, besides stopping the supply of newspapers to hostel residents.

“Since August 1, the inmates are cleaning their own rooms and buying newspaper with their own money. The students are quite upset with the development. They have to spend extra time every day in cleaning their rooms,” a hostel resident said on the condition of anonymity.

Contacted, RIMS director D.K. Singh said dean (students’ welfare) R.K. Pandey would be the right person to comment on the issue.

“I am out of station. This is not a big issue. It will be better if you talk to dean (students’ welfare) Pandey on the matter,” Singh said.

Pandey explained the reason behind the abrupt discontinuation in newspaper supply and the removal of the cleaners from duty.

“According to the norm, the money collected by selling old newspapers supplied to hostels needs to be deposited in the RIMS account. However, this has not been done for the last 10 years. Therefore, the newspaper supply was discontinued,” Pandey said.

Pandey said he would sort out the issue with the RIMS accounts department and the paper supply would be resumed from September.

He said the 25 cleaners were removed after the cleanliness work at RIMS was outsourced to a private agency called Annapurna Agency.

“The agency has accommodated the sacked workers and the cleanliness work has not been interrupted,” Pandey said.

He said the government had fixed a rate of 51 paisa per square foot per day for the outsourced agency.

“Allowing old cleaners, who were not our regular employees, to continue work when the government has fixed the rate for the private agency, would have amounted to financial irregularity,” Pandey said.

A hostel resident said the staff of outsourced agency did not clean the rooms.

“The company has been engaged to clean the common area of the hostel. The students are expected to clean their own rooms,” Pandey said.