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Chief Editors: Ayush Agarwal (210100035@iitb.ac.in), Ishita Poddar (21b030016@iitb.ac.in)
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16 March 2011
Students of Hostel 11, frustrated with the living conditions in the hostel took to the streets today with a silent protest to demand equal treatment of girls and boys in the campus wrt provision of housing facilities.
petition-for-more-acco-for-girls
Petition: Discrimination against PG girls
The girls have been unhappy for a while over the infrastructural developments happening in the institute which offer no relief to the space crunch being faced by girl students for a long time. While PGs and PhD girls in H11 stay doubled up even in the 2nd or further year of their stay, their male counterparts enjoy single rooms right from Year 1.
In July 2010, the girls had submitted a written plea to the institute explaining the severe infrastructural crunch they were facing and requesting that one of the smaller boys hostels be alloted to accommodate girls ASAP. After much discussion, 1 wing of hostel 8 was converted to a girls’ wing, relieving a small portion of the pressure on H11.
Later that month, the girls also submitted a petition against the discrimination of PG girls comparing the fact that some PG girls stay doubled up in single rooms while their male counterparts stay single all through their postgraduate studies.
While no tangible solution came out of these petitions, the girls, concerned with the terrible state of affairs that would ensue in the coming academic year (July 2011) took matters into their own hands by taking a silent protest to Main Building and demanding to meet with the Director. Armed with posters and banners and each with a black tape round her mouth, the girls waited silently till the Director, briefed by their representatives, came to meet them.
The Director, Prof Devang Khakkar confessed that the institute was struggling with providing adequate facilities to the students and particularly lagging behind wrt girls. He assured them that the problem would be reviewed and that he would meet with them next week to review possible solutions. Hostel 11’s G.Sec, Sujesha, has encouraged her hostel to come up with suggestions to temporarily remedy the problem.
H11’s accommdation crisis, highlighted in InsIghT’s September issue, when girls were living in their drying areas and TV Room (Pg 5 of this) goes somewhat like this:
If the girls are to receive the same accommodation their male counterparts receive, they need at least 400 single rooms, but H11 has only 185 single rooms, which means the institute has a long long way to go.
Scroll up to find the petitions submitted by Hostel 11 to the administration.
Photos: Jasvipul
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