Panjab University tells wardens to motivate students to leave hostels

Deepankar Sharda
Tribune News Service
Chandigarh, May 5

Amid the surge in Covid-19 cases, the Panjab University authorities are in a fix over the research scholars’ stay in hostels.

In a meeting held here today, hostel wardens raised concern over students staying in hostels, claimed sources. The authorities though told them (wardens) to “motivate” students to leave the campus and move to their respective homes at the right time.

“The students are mature enough to understand the situation. The number of cases is not only increasing in Chandigarh but also in our campus. Those, who can leave for their respective homes, should move at the right time. Otherwise, like last year, the situation will once again get complicated both for the authorities and the students,” said a PU official who was a part of the meeting.

In a recent meeting with the UT Education Department, PU had confirmed that 718 students were presently occupying the hostels and out of these, 650 were research scholars.

The university has around 20 hostels with a total capacity of 8,000 students. At present, only 10 per cent capacity is being utilised.

Sources also claimed that the authorities were in talks with the students to form a consensus.

“We have to face the situation. Many institutions are vacating their hostels and it’s a simple matter of understanding. The second wave is more effective than the previous one and everyone has to act accordingly. The parents should also come forward,” said another official.

“We can only guide them in current scenario. One cannot be taken care of if he or she gets infected. There have been cases and even authorities are aware about it,” said the official wishing anonymity.

“The students got some hint today, and they started approaching the authorities with one reason or another,” the official added.

Meanwhile, students said they were here to carry out research related works.

“We are here to get access to various journals which are beneficial for our research work. We just cannot leave the campus or research midway. There have been no clear instructions and the university is only trying to build pressure,” said Amlok, a student.

Former Panjab University VC Arun Grover suggested that a mechanism should be devised to keep research labs working to full capacity.

“Many research institutions and national research labs are taking steps to ask their research scholars to return to their respective homes,” said Grover.

“More waves are likely to hit us in near future, We must thus prepare for a long haul,” said Grover.

“The researchers (teachers, students and post docs) and support staff must be counted amongst frontline workers. The vaccine doses must be given to all of them on priority. The country needs more research today than ever before,” he said.

“The heads and senior scientists of the Chandigarh Region Innovation and Knowledge Cluster institutions must work out a strategy with the officials from the UT, Punjab and Haryana to keep the research labs working to full capacity as the online classes continue for first/second/third year undergraduate students,” Grover asserted.