Mishra Director Institute of Minerals and Materials Technology, Bhubaneswar Dr Baradakanta, addresses the audience at Ravenshaw University in Cuttack. Picture by Badrika Nath Das

Bhubaneswar, Oct. 27: Girl students of Ravenshaw University can rejoice now. After much deliberation, authorities of the university have decided to allot the East Hostel, post renovation, to girl students. The decision was taken considering the higher numerical strength of girls and concerns regarding their safety.

In August, boy students of the university had gone on a 14-day hunger strike outside the office of the registrar.

It was called off only after vice-chancellor Devdas Chhotray had agreed to give them a fair hearing and take adequate action.

Last month, some boys had forcibly entered the East Hostel without observing admission formalities, causing delay in the renovation and furnishing work.

This also delayed the handing over of the hostel to girls.

Governor and chancellor of university M.C. Bhandare today appealed to the boy students and their families “to generously consider the plight of their sisters and voluntarily withdraw from the East Hostel within a week”.

A media communiqué received from his office said: “It is a fact that girls are living in a miserable condition in existing hostels. If they are denied accommodation, many will be forced to abandon studies and leave.

Giving them accommodation at the East Hostel is of grave importance.”

The communiqué further read: “University authorities have been directed to adjust such students who are otherwise eligible for hostel admission, in any of the other hostels of the university, including the West Hostel, where limited seats are available.”

At present, there are 3,970 girls among the 6,759 students of the university.

Of the 4,795 students in under graduate classes 2,610 are girls while there are 1,368 girls out of a total of 1,964 students pursuing post graduation.

Eight hostels of the university are in a functional condition. According to the university officials, the girls are entitled to 984 of the total 1641 hostel seats. So far the authorities had to accommodate 1,130 girls against 871 seats “who had to adjust in unkempt dormitories”.

Plans to accommodate at least 130 girls in the East Hostel from the first week of November was on the cards as 250 applications from girl students for hostel were pending this year as against 50 from the boys.

The East Hostel, which had a capacity of 220 seats, was accommodating nearly 300 students. The university authorities had officially stopped accommodating students in the 89-year-old hostel building two years ago. Earlier, the West Hostel had been converted into Ravenshaw Management Centre and the Parija hostel, also a boys’ hostel, was converted to a girls’ one.

Moreover, the government had decided to provide the university Rs 2crore for the construction of two more hostels, one for the boys and the other for the girls.