At least 21 girl inmates of the Maharaja Sriram Chandra Bhanja Deo University hostel at Baripada have tested positive for Covid-19, following which hundreds of students on Wednesday staged sit-in in front of the university main gate demanding that semester examinations be conducted online.
“The Higher Education Department has issued letter to degree and autonomous colleges and universities to complete the semester exams by July 31 and publish results thereof latest by August 15. Due to the negligence of the university authorities, the exams were not finished on time, they alleged.
“Now that, a large number of students are detected positive for Covid-19, there is a high probability that the viral infection would spread in the days ahead. Hence, we demand that all semester exams and classes be conducted in online mode,” students Abhishek Panda, Subhajit Pani, Pallishree Ghosh, Ashish Jena, Bishnupada Nayak, Manisha Behera and Ankita Panda stated.
The authorities should immediately declare the university’s closure ‘sine die’, they added.
Meanwhile, university Vice-Chancellor Kishore Kumar Basa tried to explain to the students, “Semester exams will be held in offline mode as per the standing instructions of the Higher Education Department. Any student who is not interested to appear at the exams now will be given a chance to do so later after the Covid situation eases. Accordingly, the results will also be declared.”
“The 21 infected girl students have been kept in quarantine and they are presently being administered proper medicines as per advice of doctors and there is nothing to be panicky,” said univesity Registrar Sahadev Samadhia to the students.
However, the sit-in and agitation was still underway till this report was filed.