Students enduring hardships at mushrooming PG centres

City houses more than 25,000 students at PGs or in private hostels

Mangaluru and Manipal are having highest number of migrant students compared to anywhere in the State or neighbouring states, perhaps, thanks to the mushrooming of colleges and courses year after year.

Right from Kerala to Nagaland and from Punjab to West Bengal, students from every state come to the region to pursue some or the other course in some college or the other. In fact, students from 55 countries are studying in Manipal university alone.

Though most of the colleges have hostel facilities for immigrant students, more than 50 to 70 per cent of the students have no option, but to search for some paying guest (PG) accommodation or hostel facilities.

While a few manage to get good facilities, many are not so lucky and have to adjust with the facilities they are offered. Quite often, the problems that these students face in these private hostels go unnoticed. The lack of proper mechanisms to monitor the functioning of these institutions endangers the lives of women and students within and outside the premises of such institutions.

A student who stays in a PG accommodation in the City said that her house owner has provided accommodation above his residence by attracting students and parents with glittering promises. “But life in this hostel is miserable,” she said, and added that the house owner has accommodated four to seven students in each of the small rooms, beyond its occupant capacity.

“When issues are brought to the notice of the owner, he behaves rudely. The owners are least bothered about providing facilities,” she said and added that the house owner charges Rs 4,500 per person and another Rs 250 per person, if the student wants to charge a mobile or a laptop.

Another student said, on condition of anonymity, that her newly joined roommate works in a massage parlour and the four students, who had been staying there, left the PG accommodation as they found the new roommate’s behaviour suspicious. “We suspect she joined the PG to lure us or trap us by being our roommate,” the student added.

“I have stayed in many hostels and seen many of my friends complain about their hostels,” said a lecturer of a college, which has more than 10,000 students. More than 60% of these students are staying in paying guest accommodations or hostels. The college has a hostel which can accommodate only 250 students and only those who come first get an opportunity to stay in the hostel.

“The major problem that I experienced was, whenever an occupant falls sick, there is absolutely no care taken. Instead, the hostel mates have to find a means to take the occupant to a hospital, even if it is midnight, which is quite dangerous for a woman,” said a working woman residing at a well-known hostel at Jeppu.

She also claimed that she has come across disturbances from homosexuals who take students for granted as they are away from their homes and no monitoring happens in their hostels. “They usually influence, tempt and misuse innocent girls who stay with them,” she narrated.

Many female students/ women, however, adjust to this turmoil for several reasons, including fear following the fact that they are away from their hometowns, poor economic background, laxity in discipline or timetable for inmates, lack of local support and unavailability of a proper mechanism to complain to.

According to an estimate, more than 25,000 students stay in either PG accommodation or private hostels in Mangaluru alone. Even if the hostel owner charges only Rs 4,000 per student, he or she would get Rs 16,000 – presuming that there are only 4 students in a room – for each room.

No registrations

As per law, it is compulsory for all hostels to register with the Mangalore City Corporation and get an occupancy certificate. The Corporation will, in turn, share the data with the local police stations, but hardly a few hostels have registered with the MCC.

MCC Corporator Naveen D’Souza said that those who provide PG accommodation or convert their homes into private hostels should obtain licences from the MCC. “The electricity and water connections to such facilities too should be charged at commercial rates,” he said, but admitted that there are several PG accommodations / private hostels (homes converted into hostels) who mint money, as there is a huge demand for hostels in Mangaluru.

When contacted, Raju Mogaveera, MCC Deputy Commissioner (Revenue), said that plans are on the anvil to conduct a survey of PG accommodations / private hostels. As on date, nearly 150 hostels (including government-run) have been registered.

“But there may be many more which are not registered,” he admits. Mangaluru City Police Commissioner M Chandra Sekhar clarified that the police will swing into action only if there is any problem anywhere in his jurisdiction.

Ruby, who works as a lecturer in a college and stays in a hostel, said that the City immediately requires a complaint cell as well as proper monitoring facilities to look for any violations pertaining to women’s safety and functioning of these institutions/hostels.

Releasing of the list of registered hostels and paying guest to various educational institutions to update this information on their websites is the need of the hour since the admissions in most of the college admissions begins in May.