Angered for not providing meals to students at the hostel for the past several days, postgraduate (PG) students studying at Rani Channamma University (RCU), Belagavi staged a sitting protest in front of Suvarna Vidhana Soudha (SVS) on Monday, March 20 to condemn the university for hosting convocation ceremony.
First, the students staged a protest at the university campus at Bhutaranamahatti for hours and then reached Suvarna Vidhana Soudha at noon. They raised slogans against the Vice-Chancellor of RCU for failing to address students' issues, as stated in a report by The New Indian Express.
About 200 to 250 students are pursuing different PG courses at Rani Channamma University and are staying in the hostel at the university campus, Bhutaramanahatti. However, the hostel management is not providing meals to the students regularly for the past three months. Further, the students alleged that, "We were forced to eat the food in the canteen by paying money from our pockets. Moreover, the canteen has also closed since yesterday and we are sleeping on empty stomach."
Lacking other amenities
Students allege that there is no proper drinking water supply, and other basic amenities are lacking at the hostel. "There is no playground or hostel. We have brought these issues to the notice of Vice-Chancellor Prof Ramachandra Gowda and other officials many times but in vain. Now, when we are hungry, these officials are celebrating the convocation ceremony by spending lakhs. Hence, we condemn this ceremony," alleged one of the students.
Giving more details, a third-semester PG student said, "The university, which could not supply food to the students at the hostel, has now announced to conduct the semester examination in just a six days gap after finishing the practical examinations. Moreover, the syllabus is not complete in some colleges. There is no time to prepare for the examination. Therefore, the examinations should be postponed," he urged.
