The Hindu : Karnataka / Bangalore News : Ayurvedic hostel turns into hellhole

Online edition of India's National Newspaper
Thursday, Jun 22, 2006

Karnataka

Karnataka - Bangalore

Ayurvedic hostel turns into hellhole

Staff Reporter

Government college hostel inmates forced to sleep in the corridor of the make-shift accommodation

AGITATING FOR AMENITIES: Ayurvedic college students staging a protest in front of the Directorate of Ayurveda, Yoga and Naturopathy, Unani, Siddha and Homoeopathy (AYUSH) in support of their demand for basic amenities in Bangalore on Wednesday. 1; Photo: K. Gopinathan

BANGALORE: The stench of an unwashed room hits you as the doors open to the two-room makeshift hostel at the Government Ayurvedic Medical College near Anandarao Circle.

Many unwashed clothes hang bunched together on nylon ropes tied to the windows. Suitcases with clothes and books spilling out of a few are in a pile on white porcelain tiles of long counters that frame the narrow room. On top lay empty water storage cans. The mess, which is enough to drive all mothers to despair, is because 20 boys share the two-room makeshift hostel. The students have not had a proper hostel for 12 years now.

Students do not sleep in the room because the mess has attracted pests. "Rats scurry across the floor at night and there are cockroaches in most corners of the room," says hostel president Basavaraj. Some of the boys sleep in the corridor while many sleep in the yoga room. They use the bathroom in the yoga room and the old laboratory for studying.

"We brush our teeth and wash our clothes in the yoga room. But we have to do all this before 5 a.m. because the room is occupied after that," says Mr. Basavaraj.

Only 20 students stay in the hostel because of the pathetic conditions there. The college has an intake of 300 students. Others have taken accommodation on rent.

Kanth Raj, a first year student, says: "I would rather pay Rs. 1,400 rent and stay outside than live in that mess." The hostel is a non-functioning Ear, Nose and Throat (ENT) laboratory that was allotted to Ayurveda students last year after they walked out of the hostel in Audugodi. They staged a walkout after a fight with students of Unani system of medicine. That hostel had two rooms that were rented out.

"As we had differences with students of Unani system, we left the hostel and came to the college with our belongings.

The director gave us this space. He promised to provide a new facility in a few months," says Murali Naik, a final year student. "There were 20 students occupying the rooms in Adugodi. We had no space there," he says.

On Wednesday, several students of the Ayurvedic College boycotted classes protesting against the conditions in the makeshift hostel. They urged the college authorities to build a new hostel on the land available in "Tulsi Thota".

B.N. Prakash, Director of Government College in Ayurveda, Yoga and Naturopathy, Unani, Siddha and Homeopathy, says he found a place for students at the hostel for homeopathic students in Basaveshwaranagar. "The problem is they do not want to share space with anyone else," he says.

Mr. Prakash says construction of a new hostel depends on the allocation of funds.

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