Two hundred and twenty-seven hostels in the city are running without submitting the applications for registration which were made mandatory by Chennai district collectorate and show-cause notices have been issued against them, according to Chennai district collectorate.
"We will be taking both civil and criminal actions against these 227 hostels running without filing applications for registrations," said District Collector A Shanmuga Sundaram.
"We are sending show-cause notices to all these 227 hostels. We formed Special Enquiry Teams (SET) under Deputy Collector rank officers to enquire the cases. We will take action to cut electricity and water connections also. The hostel owners will be personally answerable to the inmates," he added.
This comes as Chennai District Collectorate received 1,050 applications for registration of hostels after the announcement of new guidelines for running hostels in the city to ensure the safety and security of women.
Till now the district collectorate has granted a license to seven hostels.
"For 127 hostels, we have asked for additional documents. Other cases are under scrutiny. With respect to seven hostels, we received complaints and closure notices were issued to all of them after enquiry, of which five were closed. Remaining two will also be closed. We are now processing rest of the applications as all the staff was earlier engaged in elections," the collector added.
In the District Collector's website (https://chennai.nic.in), the details of 1,050 hostels who had already filed their applications for registration have been uploaded. Girls and women and others are requested to check the list while seeking admission. Such surprise raids will continue further throughout the city or district to book more cases, the district collectorate said. The defaulters, if coming forward for registration, a decision will be taken on a case by case, on merits and with a hefty fine, the collectorate added.
Registration of all hostels has been made mandatory after the Chennai Police arrested 48-year-old Sampath Raj — the owner of a women's hostel in the city — for hiding cameras in Chennai hostel. The new guidelines also make it mandatory for hostels to install CCTV cameras and digital video recorders, appoint one warden for every 50 girls in a hostel and round-the-clock security guards.
The guidelines require the hostels to furnish no-objection certificates from the fire, police, revenue and health departments while submitting the application for approval at the collectorate office.
The taluk-wise details of unregistered/unauthorisedly functioning hostels are,
1. Mylapore - 18,
2. Velacherry - 20,
3. Sholinganallur - 79,
4. Ayanavaram - 3,
5. Alandur- - 16,
6. Perambur - 5,
7. Maduravoyal - 17
8. Guindy - 23,
9. Tondiarpet - 6,
10. Mambalam - 15,
11. Aminjikarai - 9,
12. Purasaiwalkam - 13,
13. Egmore - 3
TOTAL - 227.
