Bhopal (Madhya Pradesh): Complaints of contaminated water and poor quality food that led to violent protests on the campus of Vellore Institute of Technology (VIT) in Sehore district on Tuesday night, are also routine in several universities and higher education institutions in the city.
Similar issues were raised in Maulana Azad National Institute of Technology (MANIT), Rajiv Gandhi Proudyogiki Vishwavidyalaya (RGPV) and Makhanlal Chaturvedi University (MCU), among others, in the recent past.
In April this year, about 40 students of MANIT suffered food poisoning after consuming ‘aloo parathas’ served in the hostel mess. All of them were first year students and 15 of them had to be hospitalised. Following the incident, a team from the Food and Drug Administration of the state government inspected the hostel mess and kitchen and collected samples. Nothing emerged in the probe.
In RGPV, the contractor managing the canteen was changed a couple of months back after complaints of unhygienic food. He, however, fled with Rs 1.30 lakh deposited with him by the students as advance for one month at the rate of Rs 3000 a student. Similarly, there were complaints of non-working water coolers and filthy canteen from the Makhanlal Chaturvedi Journalism University.
President of the MANIT Students’ Council Ayush Singh told the Free Press that the messes in the institution were managed by the students themselves. “We change the vendor if we find that the food or ingredients are not of the requisite quality,” he said.
State media head of ABVP, Shivam Jat, however, said that the autonomy of the students was limited to deciding the menu. “The cooks and other mess staff are supplied by the MANIT management and the students have no say in selecting them,” he said.
According to Jat, the Barkatullah University administration has given the students full freedom to run the mess. “Students select workers, buy raw material and decide the menu,” he said.
This was a model which other institutions could follow, he said.
Former president of the ABVP unit at MCU, Amisha Kachhawa said that they had given a memorandum to the vice chancellor and the registrar of the university last week, warning of an agitation if arrangements to make pure, filtered water available to the students were not made within seven days. “I am told that after the VIT incident, work has started to give a facelift to the canteen there,” she said.
According to Bhopal district president of the NSUI, Akshay Tomar, the quality of food served to the students at RGPV mess was very poor.
He said that the root cause behind VIT-like outbursts was that student union elections were not held in colleges and universities.
“The students don’t have their own representatives with whom they can raise complaints. If they complain to the administration, they are penalised and harassed,” Tomar added.
