Students on hunger strike on the SIT premises on Tuesday. Picture by Kundan Yolmo

Siliguri, Nov. 10: Ten fourth year students of the Siliguri Institute of Technology began an indefinite relay hunger strike today, protesting the absence of campus interview, insufficient faculties and lack of hostel facilities in the engineering college.

Hundreds of students carrying placards that read “stop playing with our careers” and “we want placements” demonstrated on the campus at Salbari on the outskirts of Siliguri, off NH55.

The Calcutta-based Techno India Group runs the institute, which is one of the two private engineering colleges in town.

“They (the authorities) had promised us placements in big companies like Infosys, Tata, CTS and HCL in the prospectus. But we have not had a single campus interview in the past one year. Barely five months are left for our courses to get over,” said Alok Kumar, a student representative of the fourth year. “Although the college is receiving money from the management to organise campus interviews with big companies, the money is being misused by a section of the college staff.”

Siddharth Kumar, another student representative, said they were supposed to pay Rs 41,000 a year for a course according to the West Bengal University of Technology norm. “But the college authorities are charging us nearly Rs 50,000 promising extra facilities like spoken English classes and finishing classes for personality development and industrial training. But we have not had a single class till date.”

The trouble at the institute had started on October 30 after the management reportedly “ignored” a charter of demands submitted by the students, Alok said. Enraged by this, nearly 2,000 students of the institute boycotted classes and locked the gates of the institution preventing the authorities from entering the college from November 3.

The students alleged that the faculty were insufficient and the teachers did not have the requisite qualification.

“There are not many teachers in the college. For instance, a single teacher is the head of the IT and the computer science engineering departments. The HoDs are supposed to have MTech degrees but many in our college are BTech degree holders,” Alok said.

The students said the hostels meant for them are being used to run a Higher Secondary school of the company. “We are from far-off areas and had opted to study here as the prospectus promised hostel accommodation. But the authorities are illegally running the Techno Model School in the hostel building,” the representative said.

The college authorities, however, said a team from Calcutta would arrive here tomorrow to hold talks with the students.

“We have informed our higher-ups and a team from Calcutta will meet the students tomorrow. All the issues will be discussed and the impasse will end soon,” said S. Dasgupta, the principal.

The student leaders said they would replace the group of protesters every four days. “We will replace them when they feel weak but the hunger strike will go on till all our demands are met,” Alok said.