To host guests for Golden Jubilee event, JNU tells hostelers to vacate some rooms

In order to accommodate participants for the events, Additional Dean of Students Dhananjay Singh wrote to Senior Wardens of Narmada, Sabarmati, Lohit, Damodar, Shipra, Koyna and Mahi-Mandavi hostels Monday to “ensure” that “all dormitories seats of your respective hostel are vacant from June 1 to June 11”.

“Kindly issue a vacation notice to those students who are under P-III category (students who are residents of Union Territory of Delhi or have five or less points) and are staying in the dormitories of your respective hostel, to vacate their dormitory seats before May 30 positively so that participants of SPIC MACAY programme could be accommodated. As you are aware, P-III category students are allotted dormitory seats only during the semester. And in any case, we have to have these dormitories vacant as we prepare for hostel allotment for the upcoming 2019-20 session,” he wrote.

Singh also said SPIC MACAY will provide mattresses for participants and asked the warden to take out “complete furniture” from the dormitories to make space. Singh, along with Dean of Students Umesh Kadam and PRO Poonam Kudaisya, did not respond to queries by The Indian Express. Registrar Pramod Kumar said he was unaware of the matter.

An official source, however, said: “It is against the rules of Inter Hall Administration (IHA) to displace students arbitrarily. This should have been passed through IHA and all hostel presidents should have been taken into confidence.”

Dipsita Dhar, a resident of Narmada Hostel, said a warden came to their hostel Monday and asked residents to shift to one block, as they needed the other block to accommodate guests. “We are the legal residents of the hostel, why should we be told to leave our place to accommodate outside guests?” she said.

JNUSU president N Sai Balaji condemned the move. “The V-C believes JNU is his fiefdom and he can use JNU resources at his will. We condemn this blatant misuse of JNU’s resources for the V-C’s image building, that too at a huge inconvenience to students,” he said.