Since Monday, April 1, the students of the National Institute of Design (NID) in Amaravati, Andhra Pradesh have been on continuous protests against “inhospitable” living conditions on the campus.
The students highlighted deplorable living conditions, lack of basic amenities like water supply, emergency services and even unhealthy food and drinking water being provided to them.
On Monday, April 1, the students called for a discussion in the presence of all members of the administration, to talk about their concerns. However, to their dismay, the Chief Academic Officer (CAO) was allegedly not present for the discussion.
“The presence of CAO is important since he is a significant decision-making authority. After repeated calls, the CAO still did not show up. The students gathered outside his office in order to get answers from him,” one of the protestors informed EdexLive, on the condition of anonymity.
The student further claimed that they did not receive any satisfactory response regarding their concerns from the CAO. Shockingly, as per the students, the authority was not even aware of the recent demise of a student from the institute. The students claimed that he had died due to heart failure following discomfort in his chest and stomach.
“At this point, the tone of the discussion became even harsher as most of the students were already unsatisfied with the responses we were getting. This discussion continued for almost nine and a half hours, from 10.30 - 11 am to 8.30 pm at night. Towards the end, we reached a conclusion that we would be receiving a letter the next day, by 12 pm, in which, they (the administration) would define all the deadlines they have set to resolve our respective problems,” the student further informed.
However, the next day, Tuesday, April 2, the students were disappointed to find no such email from the authorities. As a result, the students continue with their sit-in protest on the campus.
“Since we are here to study, we want to stay here and study. There are far too many issues related to infrastructure. After the discussion today, we have lost hope in the administration’s ability to solve our problems,” he added.
