Jadavpur University has informed the UGC that an attempt to earmark a hostel solely for first-year students several years back had failed because of opposition from students’ representatives on the Executive Council, a senior JU official said on Monday.
The Executive Council is the highest decision-making body of the university.
UGC secretary Manish R. Joshi had on August 16 sent an email to JU registrar Snehamanju Basu saying the commission was “not satisfied” with a report sent by
the university and sought to know whether freshers were lodged in a separate hostel block and the access of seniors to the block were being monitored.
“In my report to the UGC I have mentioned that a hostel could not be earmarked solely for first-year students because of opposition from students’ representatives on the council. I don’t remember the year when this had happened. I
got the information from the dean of students, Rajat Roy, and mentioned it in the report sent to the UGC,” Basu told The Telegraph.
Till the Trinamul Congress came to power in 2011, the office-bearers of the elected students’ union were members of the Executive Council. The practice has since been discontinued.
Former JU vice-chancellor Suranjan Das had told this newspaper last week: “I have heard that long before I joined the university (in 2015), a committee headed by a senior professor had been constituted on the issue of the segregation of the hostel. What happened to that initiative? Surely, my immediate and past predecessors can answer that.”
The issue of segregating freshers in hostels, which is also a UGC requirement, has gained a renewed urgency at JU following the death of a first-year student, who was allegedly ragged and thrown from a second-floor balcony of the main hostel of the university.
On August 10, hours after the student had died, the university shifted all first-year students who were staying at the main hostel to New Boys’ Hostel, located on the university campus. The main hostel is near Jadavpur police station, a short walk from the campus.
A UGC regulation on curbing ragging at higher educational institutions, issued in 2009, says: “Freshers shall be lodged, as far as may be, in a separate hostel block, and where such facilities are not available, the institution shall ensure that access of seniors to accommodation allotted to freshers is strictly monitored by wardens, security guards and other staff of the institution....”
“It shall be the responsibility of the member of the faculty assigned to the group of freshers to coordinate with the wardens of the hostels and to make surprise visits to the rooms in such hostels, where a member or members of the group are lodged,” the regulation says.
“Had the JU authorities implemented the UGC regulation, the student would have been alive now. Succumbing to the illegitimate demand of students was a blunder,” a JU official said.
The university on August 18 decided to earmark New Boys’ Hostel for first-year students.
Immediately, residents of the hostel, many of them postgraduate students, started a protest saying they had not been consulted before the decision was taken. The protest continued on Monday as well.
“We are going to shift the senior students to another hostel. Why do we have to consult them?” said an official.