Two waves of Covid land edu zone in financial doldrums

Anantapur: Jawaharlal Nehru Technological University (JNTU) area which emerged as an education hub over the years with two universities, one Central University and the other JNTU apart from scores of private colleges, student hostels, government polytechnic and pharmacy colleges etc is currently like a ghost educational township with restaurants and hotels downing their shutters due to mounting financial losses caused by second wave of lockdown.

All colleges and university students had vacated their hostels and gone home for the third consecutive month.

Normally, the educational township with educational institutions, professors, residential colonies, hostels and eateries including restaurants and Biryani hotels always is bustled with life with a beehive of activity. The township does not sleep before 12 am. Hundreds of students both boys and girls will be seen taking a stroll from eating points to hostels even around 11 pm in the night.

The local economy is currently in shambles, medium and small traders and daily wage workers are in a mess unable to rise from the ruins of two lockdowns in a span of one academic year. Hostel buildings at JNTU premises had been converted into a Covid Care Centre.

Coronavirus has cast its shadow on scores of restaurants, hotels, food courts and eatery houses and hundreds of employees and their families who are dependent on work in these establishments are in shambles. Every day the zone registers roaring business and youth in colorful attire both boys and girls are seen loitering on the roads and stopping at eating houses.

With JNTUA playing host to a quarantine centre and all education establishments downing their shutters, the local economy is in doldrums.

Scores of hostels which accommodate the students too had closed and those thriving on students, mess and cafeterias had lost their livelihood.

A computer centre operator Prakash told The Hans India that his shop used to record roaring business in the normal days but now he is unable to even pay his shop rent. The micro-organism called coronavirus which came from nowhere simply ransacked life and livelihoods. Corona derailed the economy of the education zone and the city.

A woman entrepreneur Sudha Rani who lost all her servicing business observed that Covid-19 brought people to their knees and governments succumbing to the architects of Bio-Wars. She adds that the Rs.100 crore a month economy of the region is now in dire straits.