BENGALURU: Students of one of the oldest engineering colleges, set up in 1917 by Bharat Ratna Sir M Visvesvaraya, are suffering from the lack of basic facilities in their hostels.
The University Visvesvaraya College of Engineering (UVCE) in the city provides boarding for its students, but the residents say that the facility is poorly maintained with even the barest minimum — like good food and water — missing. The hostel charges around `8,000 per semester (of three to four months).
Students say that the toilets have broken doors, or none at all. Suhas (name changed), who has been staying in the hostel for the past three years, says, “The toilets are not even clean.” In the hostel, there are more than 15 bathrooms and nearly 18 toilets, most are in bad shape, he says.
None of the students want to be named because they fear it will affect their academics. “They may give us poor marks for the internals,” says Suhas.
The food is half cooked, mattresses are infested with bed bugs and hygiene is hardly adhered to, he says.
“We have to buy clean water to drink. Water is provided here, but it’s is very unsafe,” he says. “Though the canteen is clean, food is half-cooked most times,” he says.
Students have been falling sick from this, says another student Anand (name changed).
Anand says that the hostel rules direct staff to keep the rooms and general surroundings clean, but “they simply clean the corridors, we sweep our own rooms.”
He does not mind the chore except it does not rid the room of a worse inconvenience — bed bugs. “It is painful to sleep here. We can’t study in a place like this,” he says.
Many students are from financially struggling families so they cannot shift to a private PG or hostel. Niranjan (name changed) says, “I am from a poor family and the hostel is nearby. I just have to put up with this for another year, then I will be out of here.”
The students have been vocal about their troubles, but to no avail. “We have expressed our problems before the media many a times, but the authorities here not bothered to change anything,” says Suhas.