Hyderabad: About 120 first year post graduate students of Osmania University’s Arts College do not have a place to stay as their seniors are not allowing them to enter the hostel.
As per convention previous year’s students move from C hostel of the university to A hostel to accommodate first year students. This year senior students are not moving out of C hostel.
There have been cases of first year students trying to move into hostel rooms allocated to them but seniors threw their bags out. All this happens without any fear of the law as the university is a headless chicken with no permanent VC.
Senior students are not moving out of the hostel because they do not want to shift to A hostel which is in ruins. However, a senior professor from Arts College said, “C hostel has 96 rooms with a capacity of six students each. The 120 first year students can be easily accommodated in C hostel along with seniors. Moreover, it is just a temporary move. A new hostel is under construction for first year students to where they can shift in a month. However, the seniors are not listening to reason. They threatened us when we tried to talk to them.”
The main reason why seniors are not allowing anyone to enter C hostel is that hundreds of outsiders have been brought in by them. A professor from Arts College says, “Hostels in OU have become boarding and lodging centers.”
36 of the 96 rooms have been converted into offices by student organisations. As per officials of the hundreds of illegal inmates, almost 40% are people who enrolled in PG courses more than once and are not eligible to get hostel rooms.
Talks are on with the first year students to see if they can shift to A hostel for a while till the new hostels are completed. However, even A hostels have many encroachers who might make the move difficult.
