Students at the National Institute of Design in Amaravati, Andhra Pradesh (NID Andhra Pradesh) have been protesting since yesterday, April 1, against the allegedly deplorable living conditions and lack of amenities on the campus.
The students demanded that the management of the institution, especially the Chief Academic Officer, take responsibility for the students’ well-being, and staged a sit-in protest against his alleged apathy towards their living conditions.
Established in 2015, NID Andhra Pradesh is an autonomous educational institution under the Department for Promotion of Industry and Internal Trade, Ministry of Commerce, Government of India.
The institute is currently functioning out of the campus of Acharya Nagarjuna University in Guntur. As per its website, the institution also announced setting up a 50-acre campus in Amaravati.
However, the protesting students paint a different picture of the situation and say that the reality is far from what they were promised. They allege that since its inception eight years ago, the institution has not been transparent with the status of the construction of the new campus.
They further allege that “successive batches of students were hoodwinked into taking admission by false and inadequate information on the website, and told about the reality only after joining”.
Six batches of students have graduated from the institution without getting to experience the infrastructure they were promised, the protesting students allege. In a press statement shared by them with EdexLive, they say that students were left to arrange for their own accommodation and food.
At the same time, other campuses of NID offered their students hostel and mess facilities, along with an actual campus to call their own. As a result, many students had to find accommodation in the townships and residential areas near the campus.
Lack of transparency and delays
The statement goes on to detail that the students received an extended break following their odd-semester examinations in December 2023, to “facilitate the transition to the new campus” in Amaravati. Students say the new campus was not fully constructed at this point.
This hiatus was extended for two months, students say, and no information was given to them about when they could resume classes. It was only upon repeated inquiries from students and their parents, that the administration announced that the classes would be resumed from March this year, albeit in online mode.
Moreover, when parents of a few students visited the campus ahead of the tentative reopening and transition date and found the campus to be “inhospitable”, the administration assured them that bare minimum facilities, such as laundry, mess, hostels, and emergency medical services would be operational.
However, the students revealed that this was not the case.
Uninhabitable campus
In the statement, the students narrate that to their shock, these facilities were not operational in the slightest. There was a severe water crisis on the campus with unsafe drinking water at the institute, as well as a shortage of water in hostel washrooms, they say.
Further, the campus did not have any medical services such as 24/7 medical staff, first aid and basic medicine, medical equipment such as oximeters and BP (blood pressure) machines, and a proper ambulance service.
The students further state that the campus itself was only partially constructed, with “more than half of the buildings still under construction”. As a result, they are forced to “live on a construction site”, surrounded by heavy machinery and construction waste, making the campus unsafe to live on. To add to their woes, the campus is covered in shrubs and bushes, and this environment made it easy for pests to thrive. A video of the campus, accessed by EdexLive, showed rats running around in what was supposed to be a hostel room.
“The current campus, after 10 years of construction, could be defined more accurately as a refugee camp,” say the students.
Moreover, the food served in the mess led to health issues for students en masse, with over 30 students being hospitalised at the All India Institute of Medical Sciences (AIIMS) Mangalagiri 27.7 km away from the campus.
Apathy from the administration
The most concerning aspect of this entire ordeal, according to the students, is the apparent lack of concern of the administration. When students complained about the unhealthy food and the health problems it brought about, there has seemingly been no response from the administration.
They further allege that when a student on the campus died due to heart failure following discomfort in his chest and stomach, the Chief Administrative Officer of the institution was not even aware of the incident. When the protesting students questioned him about the incident, he allegedly said, “How can I be aware about everything that goes on in the world?”
This alleged apathy and lack of responsibility towards students’ health has only exacerbated the number of medical incidents among the students over the years, the students say.
“For years, students have been protesting for the Institute to take responsibility for medical incidents and provide a system or solution for such perils; for, after all, the students are 18-20 year-olds in a residence they had been tricked into coming to, with no knowledge about the local surroundings,” reads the statement from the students.
The protesting students say that they are spending more time figuring out how to survive and get by, than actually studying.
In protest against the inedible breakfast served in the mess, as well as the administration’s apathy towards the state of affairs on campus, the students ate breakfast purchased from a hotel outside the campus, in front of the Chief Administrative Officer’s office today, April 2. In a video shared with EdexLive, the students admit to being moved to tears after eating the food, as it was a major upgrade from what they were being served in the mess.
One of the protestors, on the condition of anonymity, informed EdexLive that the protest would continue until they get a response from the administration. They also informed that the students boycotted all classes, as part of the protest.
