SPPU Hostel Row: Savitribai Phule Pune University PhD students still waiting for hostel rooms

SPPU Officials said that they are coming up with new selection criteria for allotting hostel rooms to research students who said the university is lethargic.

SPPU Hostel Row: Research students of various departments or centres of Savitribai Phule Pune University have not been allotted hostel rooms yet. SPPU Officials said that they are coming up with new selection criteria for allotting hostel rooms to research students who said the university is lethargic, according to TOI.

SPPU hostel rooms to be allotted on merit basis

Sachin Ballal, the chief rector at the SPPU, told the media portal, “We have hostel facilities for students who come for undergraduate, postgraduate, and PhD programmes. Now, the number of students is large so we allot the hostel rooms on the basis of merit in the entrance examinations for admission.

“This is a fair way to give rooms to students. But for PhD courses there is no entrance exam. A particular number of students are selected in each department based on various requirements and there is no common minimum denominator to decide the merit of these students,” Bhalla added.

Students not happy with new regime

Earlier, SPPU hostels were allotted on first come first serve basis. Now with the new rules, students are not happy. They claim that if the varsity had to introduce the new selection model it should have introduced it before the admission process and not two months after the admissions; or simply introduced it from the next academic session.

Students are not happy. Tushar Patil, who registered as a doctoral student on May 2 and got his confirmation on June 22, said, “I have been running from one office to the other for hostel accommodation. All we hear is that the authorities are revising rules. But it should have been done before admitting students for this academic year. The committee is not able to decide on the rules for over two months. Where will poor students stay in an expensive city like Pune? There are students from the 2019 batch who have not been allotted rooms,” Patil said.

Patil said that he supports the decision to revise the rules. “For doctoral students to get a hostel, the head of the department has to write to the rector. Not all HoDs are fair and sometimes, people do not get any recommendations, because for some reason, they are not in favour with the HoDs. If personal biases are weeded out and admissions to the hostel are given in a transparent and fair way, students will benefit,” he said.

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