Mess repairs spark students' outcry

Hyderabad: Students living in the Osmania University hostel have nowhere to eat as the mess is closed even though the academic year started on August 3.

Students were promised by the administration that the mess would start by August 11, but this has not happened. Students are now planning to stage protests during the visit of the National Accreditation and Assessment Council (NAAC) team to the university from August 17, if the mess doesn’t open within three days.

Mr Balasani Santhosh, a post-graduate student, said, “If the university could not finish the the hostel repairs on time, why did they start the academic session? If we stay in the hostel we have to buy from the canteen or from restaurants, which we cannot afford.”

Mr Kumar Swamy, a masters student, said, “We are forced to eat the '5 meal scheme provided by the GHMC in the afternoon, but for dinner we have no option but to buy from the canteen for which we don’t have sufficient money.”
He said some students have gone back to their villages because they can’t afford the extra expense and because of this they are missing classes.

“We demand that the mess be opened at the earliest otherwise we will protest against the administration and also the OU student’s union will protest during the NAAC visit and we will also share our problems with the NAAC team,’’ Mr Swamy said.

Gopal Reddy, Registrar of Osmania University, said that due to “some ongoing repairs in the PG hostels we are not able to start the hostel mess for postgraduate students now. The hostel mess has been started for the engineering students. The hostel mess for postgraduate students will most probably start from August 20.’’