Encroachments on the premises of Saidpur hostels (in background). Picture by Ranjeet Kumar Dey

Taking a baby step towards sanitising students’ abodes, Patna University (PU) has decided to erect a boundary wall around the hostels at Saidpur.

The perimeter wall would be erected after the monsoon is over and encroachers on the hostel campus would be evicted. Thereafter, the existing hostels would be demolished and illegal occupants would be purged. Then, the south campus of the varsity and new hostels would be built. The works department of the university will execute the plans for which the timeframe is yet to be decided.

Of the nine hostels of Saidpur, just two are functional at this moment. The hostel number-2 houses postgraduate science students of PU. Research scholars stay in the hostel number-9.

The university declared the rest dangerous to live in. But several illegal occupants have checked in to them.

PU vice-chancellor Shambhu Nath Singh told The Telegraph: “The university has been trying hard to set things in order at Saidpur hostels. At present, there are several illegal occupants in them. The university had planned to approach Patna High Court to evict them, but things did not take shape. Now, we are working according to a plan and in phases. In the first phase, a proper boundary wall will be constructed around the hostels and encroachments will be removed.”

Several slums have come up on the campus of the hostels at Saidpur.

Singh said: “There are several kinds of encroachments on the hostel land. The works department has clicked pictures of the encroachments and the boundary wall in a shambles. Right now, it is difficult to start the construction work because of the monsoon. But as soon as the rainy season is over, the work will start. First, the boundary will be constructed. Then, the slums will be removed with the help of the district administration.”

Singh said the second phase of the plan include the demolition of the hostels and removal of all the illegal occupants. “If we start evicting the illegal occupants of the hostels now, they will create problems. So, we will do it in phases,” Singh said.

“The third phase of the plan includes construction of the south campus of the PU on the reclaimed land,” Singh said.

The varsity has a plan to shift the Vanijya Mahavidyalaya, the directorate of distance education and the postgraduate depart- ment of commerce and economics there.

“With these departments being shifted, new state-of-the-art hostels will be constructed for the students. The entire campus will be WiFi-enabled,” Singh told The Telegraph.

Sources said the existing hostels at Saidpur, built in 1980s, had become a haven for hooligans. On January 23 this year, shopkeepers at the Bahadurpur market were forced to pull their shutters down over illogical Saraswati Puja donation demand of some hostel inmates. In December last year, the body of Dilip Kumar, an illegal boarder of hostel number-2, was recovered.