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One of the cramped and dilapidated BIT-Sindri hostels. Picture by Gautam Dey
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Lack of hostel space has taken on serious proportions in the lone state-run engineering cradle with BIT-Sindri authorities restricting the number of admissions in postgraduate courses and also denying BTech students hostel facilities due to the crunch.
The gravity of the situation can be gauged from the fact that the 55 diploma students who took admission in the second-year BTech course under a lateral entry scheme on August 31 were asked to make their own arrangements for stay. The institute only alloted space to five girls on request of their parents.
Notably, 10 per cent of the 680 BTech seats are reserved for engineering diploma students from polytechnics who are allowed to join second year as per a lateral entry scheme.
Meanwhile, the institute has also restricted the number of MTech admissions this year. Only 94 students have been admitted for the 220 seats available in five disciplines. For the MTech in mechanical engineering course, only 48 admissions have been made for 75 seats. Similarly, in the civil engineering stream, 12 students have been admitted though there are 50 seats. However, all 30 electrical engineering seats have been filled.
“We had no option as we can’t provide hostel facility to all. The existing 25 hostels can house 2,100 but are already crammed with 3,000 students,” said BIT-Sindri director S.K. Singh. Of the hostelites, over 200 students are pursuing MTech courses.
Sources in the institute said the administration was planning to completely stop allotting hostels to first year BTech students from the next batch. The space crunch has in the past led to campus brawls. On Monday night, three final year students were caught fighting in the hostel meant for third year students and were fined Rs 2,000 each and debarred from campus placements.
Pointing out the problems, Singh said six students were sharing 300sqft rooms in hostels 7, 8, 9, 10, 11, 22, 23 and 24. Some students were also staying the common rooms of the hostels. Two students shared 64sqft space in hostels 12, 13, 15 and 16, leaving them no space to put in a table or a pedestal fan. Only the rooms of hostels 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 14, 17, 18 and 19 were allotted to single final year students.
Chief hostel warden Girijesh Kumar complained that the hostels did not have necessary furniture and the toilets were in poor condition.
“We charge only Rs 3,000 per year from the students, the bulk of which goes in paying salaries of ward boys,” said Kumar.
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