Cuttack, April 9: The focus is back on illegal private boys and girls hostels in Bhubaneswar and Cuttack with Orissa High Court directing the state government to submit details on the measures it had taken to regulate them.

A division bench of acting Chief Justice Pradip Mohanty and Justice Biswajit Mohanty asked the government yesterday to submit the details within a week while considering a public interest litigation on the mushrooming of unregistered private hostels.

The petition, filed by Cuttack-based lawyer Shivsankar Mohanty, has sought direction to the government to ensure that all private boys and girls hostel running illegally without permission were identified and registered with the police immediately.

The petitioner also wanted a direction to the municipal corporations of Bhubaneswar and Cuttack to impose fines or penalties on owners for converting their residential buildings into hostels without prior permission or registration.

The petition said that to control and check the crime in private hostels in the twin cities, the police commissioner had sanctioned the draft "Bhubaneswar-Cuttack Police Commissionerate (Registration/ Licencing of Private Residential Hostels of School/ College/Technical Education institutions" and had forwarded it to the home department for gazette notification on February 14, 2013.

"But the regulation is yet to be notified and illegal private boys and girls hostels are running unchecked and unabated in the twin cities. The administration has no information on these illegal hostels," the petition said.

Notification of the regulation is necessary for registration of private hostels, managed by various colleges and technical educational institutions/private bodies under the jurisdiction of the Cuttack-Bhubaneswar police.

All educational institutions do not have hostels and consequently, private hostels are mushrooming every day and crimes are being reported in different private hostels of the twin cities, the police commissioner had written to the home department in his 2013 letter.