BC Welfare hostels over-crowded with students in Tirupati

Tirupati : Due to lack of adequate accommodation, BC Welfare hostels across the district are overcrowded with students. State government is running 62 pre-matric and 34 post-matric hostels for Backward Community students in the district and more than 10,000 students are stay in these hostels to pursue their studies.

Majority of these hostels are congested due to over crowding and they are being run in private buildings. For instance, in Tirupati city BC hostel 10 students can stay in each room, while more than 21 students are staying as inmates in each hostel room. Due to unavailability of accommodation, students face hardships for sleeping, for using bathrooms, toilets etc.

From this academic year BC Welfare department has allowed the students of Rayalaseema to stay in Tirupati BC hostel which has become an overburden on the hostel.

In hostels in Sathyavedu and other places, they do not have bedsheets to protect themselves in winter season. But officials maintain that they have already supplied bedsheets to the students. On several occasions, officials delay release of cosmetic charges to the hostels.

Another major problem is that government finds it difficult to identify places to construct own buildings for the BC Welfare hostels. In Tirupati, Chittoor and other places officials are running the hostels in old buildings. In rainy season, rain water leak from these buildings and officials ignore to solve such problems.

In several hostels, windows are in broken condition and students face problems during rainy and winter seasons. The hostels also face the problem of inadequate wardens and other staff. More than 70 Class IV employees posts are vacant in the department.

Student leader and SFI district secretary N Madav Krishna said to The Hans India that these problems were brought to the notice of officials, but were not solved. Mainly, the hostels are over-crowded, he added.