Nizam Students Held Over Hostel Food Protest
Students alleged that stale food had been served and that food containing insects had also been found.
Hyderabad:Around 15 students of Nizam College were detained by Abids police on Friday after a protest over poor food outside the boys’ hostel in Basheerbagh led to blockage of the traffic for several hours. About 100 students gathered outside the boys’ hostel and staged a dharna from about 11 am, carrying utensils and food to protest what they described as repeated problems with the quality of meals served at the hostel. Students alleged that stale food had been served and that food containing insects had also been found.
“We are being given food that is not fit to eat. We have complained several times, but there has been no proper response,” a protesting student Kiran Basa said. His friend Ashwini Kumar added that this morning, they found stale curry served for breakfast. “We brought the food and utensils out to show what we are being served. This is about our basic health and safety,” another student said. Vijay said “on certain days, the food isn’t even enough for everybody.”
Another group of students continued the agitation inside Nizam College, over the delay in hostel allotment. “Non-scholarship students who had joined the college had been attending classes for around one-and-a-half months, while hostel accommodation was still not allotted to them, some of them come from far off places while some of them do not get to reach their private hostel in time to get their lunch,” Pallavi, a first year student told Deccan Chronicle on Friday, on the third day of their protest.
She added that about 800 students are seeking hostel accommodation at Nizam College, with the shortage leaving students waiting for allotment even after the academic year had begun. On Thursday evening, police had intervened when the protesting students attempted to enter the Principal’s chamber. The students sought clarity on when the hostel rooms would be allotted and urged the college administration to complete the process without further delay. “We, who pay the full fee, are a huge reason the college has fund to run, how can we be denied allocation,” another students added.
The hostel-allocation issue has also been a recurring concern at Nizam College, with students in previous years raising questions over limited accommodation and the distribution of available rooms between undergraduate and postgraduate students. While the principal Prof Ch Srinivas maintained that the allocation is as per rules, students said they were asked to speak to Osmania University Bice Chancellor Prof Kumar Molugaram.
