Pune: Students of Karve Institute of Social Service (KISS) were left in lurch when male students were asked to vacate their hostel accommodation overnight, without prior notice.
Around 14 boys residing at the boys hostel of KISS were asked to leave on Friday. The students of the college have had a strained relationship with the administration after their battle against fee hike.
The students submitted a letter to the management and have discussed their demands with Chairman Sadananda Deshpande, Secretary Shivkumar and hostel in-charge Mahesh Thakur on Tuesday. The college has communicated with students stating that no profit was being generated from the hostel, it has become difficult to run the hostel with less number of students.
“We have conveyed that we require a hostel as per the prospectus given to us during admission. Although, the management said that they had decided to shut the hostel in October last year, they had not served any notice or given any intimation to students. Moreover, this year’s prospectus also mentions the hostel facility, which means it was certainly not pre-decided,” said a second year student of urban and rural community development (URCD).
Problems galore
Students have been facing several other problems like college has stopped providing Internet facilities to students, their old library has been shifted to a small room that connects the main building and corridor, giving a limited space to students to utilise the reading room.
The students have said that these are the consequences of the protest they held against the unprecedented fee hike introduced by the college this year, while the management has cited cost cutting as the reason.
When contacted, KISS Trustee Sandip Khardekar said that the media must contact college authorities but Director of KISS Dilip Walonkar refused to speak on the matter.
STUDENTS’ COMPLAINTS
- Old library now hosts commerce course and the library has been shifted to a less spacious spot where only 5 to 6 students can sit together.
- There were seven newspapers on display, which has been reduced to only two.
- This is of special concern for social service students as newspapers are a major source of knowledge.
