Hyderabad: TS women’s varsity grappling with faculty crunch, poor infra

Hyderabad : A year-old Telangana Mahila Viswavidyalayam, Koti, the first women's varsity in the State, has been trembling with many issues, including faculty crunch, a few blocks in dilapidated condition and lack of classrooms.

According to officials, the varsity is stepping into its centenary year in this September. It plans to introduce several courses, including BA Fashion Design and Technology, MSC Data Science, and MSC Food Science.

But its main issue is severe staff crunch. It mostly depends on contract faculty; only 25 are permanent teaching staff. The remaining have been recruited on an outsourcing basis.There is a need for 217 permanent staff. Also as per student strength of approximately 5,000 including those pursuing UG and PG courses, classrooms are not sufficient .There are around 96 classrooms; there is a need for 10-12 more.

About the university’s problems, Prof. M Vijjulatha, Vice- Chancellor, said, “there have been no changes in the institution since ages; many things are lying in the same condition. They include library. We have plans to widen the main entrance, as it is narrow.’

‘The main reason for not renovating the university is fund crunch. As it is to step into the centenary year, we have decided to restore the physics block, a historic structure that is in dilapidated condition. It will be turned into a centenary block. We plan to construct a hostel and academic blocks to cater to growing admissions’. ‘Another issue is we don’t have a full-fledged auditorium; we have Esro Hall which can hardly accommodate 400 at a time. On this we have given several representations to the State government but are yet to receive a response from the concerned officials,” she stated.

The State government should start the recruitment process, as there is a lack of teaching and non-teaching staff. As against the required 217, we have only 25 permanent staff. Also 384 non-teaching staff is needed; we have only 44 permanent non-staff members. We plan to introduce many courses, but due to lack of infrastructure we are unable to take them up, the V-C added.

A few students have alleged that recently the Koti Women’s College has been upgraded into women's university, but it lacks all facilities a varsity should have. The main concern is the university does not have a hostel, and due to which many students are forced to stay in the Osmania University hostel.

“Due to lack of a hostel on the Koti university campus we are forced to stay in OU hostel, as private hostels are expensive. Daily we are facing hardships for traveling. Many representations have been submitted to the university authorities but all fell on deaf ears,” said G Vennela, a BCom third year student.