Jadavpur University has earmarked two hostels where only first-year students will stay.
The decision was taken at a meeting of the students’ welfare board on Thursday.
The JPJU quarters (staff quarters) and New Block Hostel will be reserved for the newcomers.
A sub-committee has been constituted to supervise the shift of the students who are staying in New Block Hostel.
Officiating vice-chancellor Buddhadeb Sau told Metro: “The UGC has repeatedly sought to know what steps we have taken to segregate the first-year students. The classes for the first-year engineering students will start in early October, which means we have to create a separate facility by September 30. If we cannot do so by the deadline, the regulatory bodies will have to be informed.”
The first-year students of science and humanities courses will be accommodated in the same hostels as those pursuing BTech.
The officiating VC said 15 senior students would have to be shifted from New Block Hostel to make room for first-year students.
The employees staying in the JPJU quarters will be shifted to another block.
Sau said even a section of senior students at JU were scared of their seniors.
“The 15 students (staying at New Block Hostel), who are in the second, third and fourth years, are not comfortable with the idea of staying in the PG (postgraduate) hostels as they are scared of those who are senior to them. I hope the board will work this out,” Sau said.
A member of the students’ welfare board said a sub-committee had been constituted to handle the transition.
“The proposals are likely to be taken up at the upcoming meeting of the executive
council, the highest decision-making body of JU, scheduled for September 26,” he said.
Metro reported on August 20 that a decision by JU to earmark a hostel (New Boys’ Hostel) for first-year undergraduate students, in compliance with a UGC directive issued in 2009, triggered protests. Postgraduate students at the hostel had refused to move out.
Over 30 first-year students who stayed in the A-1 and A-2 blocks of JU Main Hostel were temporarily shifted to New Boys’ Hostel on August 10, hours after a first-year student who stayed in the main hostel was allegedly killed by senior students.