After facing initial land hitches, premier educational institutes IIM, Ranchi and National University for Study & Research in law (NUSRl) are finding it difficult to find accommodation for students.
In a recent development the State Arts, Culture, Sports and Youth Affairs department has showed its inability to provide additional hostel accommodation to both the institutions for their new batches on Khelgaon premises.
Both premier institutions had approached the department in January mid this year. Talking to The Pioneer, Secretary of State Arts, Culture, Sports and Youth Affairs department Ajoy Kumar Singh said, “We are unable to provide rooms to these institutes since we need space for Sports academies which are to be established at Khelgaon and Morhabadi this year. This decision was taken recently.”
The boys’ hostel of NUSRl is located at Khelgaon while the girls’ hostel is based at a private apartment Sahara Vihar, about 1.5 kilometers from the Mesra campus. On the other side, IIM-R students including girls and boys are residing at 220 rooms at Khelgaon campus hostel.
An official of NUSRl informed, “We are temporarily planning to manage the students in the same building at Khelgaon and Sahara Vihar where we have common areas by putting partitions within the buildings. Though it will be suffocating for children but we have no other option.”
NUSRl is in talks with private apartments for proper accommodation of the students. NUSRl needs hostel accommodation for as many as 100 students including 45 girls and 55 boys of the upcoming batch excluding the officials.
There are 248 students at NUSRl while IIM-R has admitted 220 students. IIM-R Director could not be contacted for his comments on the issue. However, he had earlier mentioned that IIM-R was looking for additional 100 rooms for the hostel and as an alternative, authorities were searching some private accommodation at Bariatu for girls’ accommodation.
Presently, both these premier institutes—NUSRl and IIM-R--are running on temporary campus at Birla Institute of Technology Mesra (BIT) Mesra and Suchna Bhawan respectively.