Some of the universities like Presidency and Rabindra Bharati are not reopening their hostels despite starting in-person classes from Tuesday, following concerns over maintaining physical distancing norms.
Officials said they apprehend that it would be difficult for them to keep track of whether distancing norms and other safety protocols are being followed inside the rooms and common areas.
They want to wait for sometime to review the situation before allowing accommodation.
The 127-year-old Eden Hindu hostel of Presidency University adjacent to the campus houses 274 male boarders. The girls’ hostel in Salt Lake has 91 boarders.
Sources on the campus said even as the practical classes of the four departments — geology, mathematics, chemistry and life |science — would resume on campus from next Tuesday, hostels would not be reopened now.
Deeprajit Debanth, the assistant general secretary of the university’s students’ union said, the dean of students informed that either hostels won’t be opened now.
“...But if the hostels are not reopened, students from the districts will suffer. We will speak to the authorities about this on Tuesday,” he said.
Repeated calls to the dean of students, Arun Kumar Maity, went unanswered.
Sources said concerns stemming from the fact it would be difficult to monitor whether the physical distancing and other norms were being maintained, came in the way of reopening the hostels.
A teacher of the life science department at Presidency said if the hostels are not reopened, students who require to stay at the hostels to be able to attend in-person practical classes, will continue to miss out on important lessons that are a must in lab-based subjects.
“In that case we have to take their practical classes over online mode which can hardly compensate for the off-line classes," he said.
Rabindra Bharati University will allow offline classes on Tuesdays, Wednesdays and Thursdays maintaining Covid guidelines.
But a notice issued by the university’s registrar, Subir Maitra, last week says: “Hostel facilities would not be made available to the students as of now.”
Vice-chancellor Sabyasachi Basu Raychaudhuri said: “It would be difficult for us to maintain the physical distancing norms inside the hostels. So, we want to wait and review the situation before taking a call on reopening hostels....”
RBU has five hostels that can occupy 400-odd students.
A varsity official said: “We are treading cautiously and will review the situation in January,” he said.