Indore: Days after PhD students marched to the institute campus over issue of poor transportation facility, Indian Institute of Technology Indore faced another protest on Friday night when BTech students skipped their dinner and gheraoed residence of the director protesting against poor quality of food served to them.
The institute authorities, which were sent to pacify students, instead egged them on by accusing their general secretary Utkarsh Singh of bringing in outsiders to stage demonstration at Director Pradeep Mathur’s residence. Irked by the accusation and to push for their demand of terminating the mess contractor, the students again staged a demonstration at the institute on Saturday afternoon which continued till filing of this report.
Students of IIT Indore have been protesting against their mess contractor alleging that he serves substandard food. In October last year, the students had staged demonstration over the issue and also alleged that worms were found in the food served to some of the students.
The Gymkhana Club of students had recommended termination of the mess contract awarded to a caterer of Bhopal but to no avail. “Verbal complaints regarding tasteless food served to students reached to the institute authorities many a time but all of them fell on deaf ears,” the students claimed.
On Thursday night, the students gave a miss to the dinner and went to raise the issue with their director but he did not meet them. To this, the students staged a demonstration outside his house and shouted slogans against him. “On learning about the protest, teachers and administrative staff reached the scene and tried to pacify us but the director did not come out,” the protesting students claimed.
As the students did not listen to give up their protest, the staff threatened of disciplinary action against them after which the agitation ended. On Friday morning, student representative Utkarsh Singh was called for a meeting with administrative staff including teaching staff. Sources claimed that the officers accused Utkarsh of instigating his classmates against the institute authorities. “They also accused him of calling in outsiders for staging a protest at the director’s residence,” the sources said.
Browned off the allegations, the students again staged a demonstration on the institute campus which continued till late evening. Three days ago, PhD students of IIT Indore, who resides in Silver Springs campus, had staged a march towards the campus in protest against non-availability of transport facility.
Closure of two canteens ignited protests
According to sources, the students were cross with the institute authorities for not terminating the contractor of the mess caterer but they were still not coming in open to protest over the issue as there were two canteens on the campus where they would have meals. On Wednesday, the institute authorities shut both the canteens named– Guru Mahima Foods and Aladdin which led to protest.
When contacted, IIT Indore media in-charge Nirmala Menon said that she did not know much information about the development at the institute as she was on leave. She said that she learnt from an email that one of the canteens has been reopened.
