LU hostels reeking of apathy
Filthy rooms, spiders’ webs and stinking toilets show the varsity is hardly ready to welcome the new batch of freshers
LUCKNOW: : The cream yellow walls of the small 10 x 10 rooms are have a thick carpet of dirt. Two plywood beds lie disarranged, a broken chair sits on top of a bed and another is propped up against the wall. The room reeks of spoiled leftover food of the room’s last inhabitant.
The scene is similar in almost all rooms of the double storey Subhash hostel of Lucknow University. Though the rooms look uninhabitable, the university, like previous years, will soon allot them to freshers.
Subhash hostel is one of the 16 hostels on both campuses of Lucknow University. The hostels, according to university management, are maintained by funds generated by internally. LU officials assert that the hostels are tidied and maintained each year.
Yet the condition of the hostels remains abysmal, with old hostels like Subhash being worse than others.
Like the rooms of Subhash hostel, the paint in the corridors is also peeling off. The corners are covered in dust, with fresh betel stains overlapping layers of old stains. The roofs appear to be colonies of spiders. Spider web clings to most parts of the floor.
Located in the corner, the bathrooms are a nightmare . The washbasins in are either broken or clogged. Taps are without faucets . A tap on a basin is weighed down under a cement brick to prevent water from trickling . A few steps ahead are the toilets but with putrid smell emerging from there, it takes courage to trudge ahead.
Human waste covers most of the pots. The sight resembles public toilets but worse. It’s hard to imagine that in a fortnight, students will use this bathroom to get ready for classes where they will be lectured on the importance of cleanliness. The second storey of the two story building is dirtier than the ground floor.
The conditions are same in the nearby hostels. Some even have cattle roaming inside the courtyard with nobody to shoo them away .
When contacted, the Lucknow Univeristy officials feigned innocence over the hostel conditions. “The university staff did not get enough time to maintain the hostel because they were vacated recently,” said NK Pandey, LU spokesperson . He added that a cleanliness drive would begin soon. “We have compiled the estimate of the expenses required for the upkeep and the work will start once funds are allotted,” said Pandey.
Without revealing the amount required for the upkeep, Pandey claimed that it would be released within a few days. When asked about the duration of the maintenance process, he said, “We will try to finish it before the start of the new session and will continue the work even after the hostel rooms are allotted.”
Last year in August, hostel inmates and student leaders held the vice chancellor and other officials hostage in the VC’s room to protest the poor upkeep of hostels.
With the present abysmal condition, the students might repeat the protest this year too.