New girls' hostel for Andhra University

Visakhapatnam: If everything goes as planned, a new girls hostel will come up on the campus of Andhra University, putting all the issues being faced by the women hostelites to rest. The management of Andhra University has recently decided to construct a 500-bed capacity new hostel for the girl students with a library and 24x7 reading room facilities. With the ever increasing strength of girl students on AU campus, the Andhra University ladies hostel in Maharanipeta has not been able to cope. The officials had to accommodate more number of girl students in a single room for them to avail of the hostel facility. There were also instances of women students taking the protest route over the congested rooms. To tide over the situation, some students were recently shifted to the nearby Pragati Charitable Trust hostel.

Andhra University wants to take the advantage of funds appropriated under the Rashtriya Uchchatar Shiksha Abhiyan (RUSA) as well as Universities with Potential for Excellence for constructing the new hostel. The varsity had already been sanctioned about Rs 20 crore of RUSA funds and in total it would receive '100 crore in a phased manner. Speaking to this correspondent, Andhra University Vice-Chancellor, Prof. G. Nageswara Rao said that constructing a new girls' hostel tops his priority list. “The women’s hostel was constructed considering the demographics of few women students in those days. I had already explained the issue to HRD minister Ganta Srinivasa Rao and he extended his immediate support. We are in the process of identifying a suitable land for the hostel as it is also linked with security of girl students. We have been planning a 500-bed capacity hostel with advanced infrastructure, including a library and a 24x7 reading room as in the case of the library in the varsity. By this month end, we would shift a total of 200 students to the Pragati Charitable Trust hostel,” he added.

According to Prof. Rao, until the 90s, there were only 300 to 400 women students at AU for every 1,000 male students. But now the number of girl students exceeds the number of male students in several departments, particularly at Science College, including Chemistry, Pharmacy, etc.

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Andhra University would earmark about Rs 2 crore for the new ladies hostel.
 
By end of this month, about 200 girl students would be shifted to Pragati Charitable Trust for temporary accommodation.

Until the 90s, there were only 300 to 400 women students at AU for every 1,000 male students. But now the number of girl students exceeds the number of male students in several departments.