Many student hostels of a plethora of educational institutions have mushroomed in the residential areas of the capital city, flouting the guidelines of the All India Council for Technical Education (AICTE), the Commissionerate police and other concerned authorities. The hostels have turned a headache for local residents due to the nefarious activities of some of the inmates.
According to the AICTE guidelines, the educational institutions which are not having hostels at their own campuses would not be given approval. However, some educational institutions are fraudulently taking houses on rent and claiming them to be their own hostels to get AICTE approval by submitting forged documents.
Besides, the hostels need to be registered with the Commissionerate police. But more than 90 per cent of the hostels in the city have flouted this guideline though they have been operating since years. This has encouraged the greedy house owners to turn their residences into hostels as the police continue to turn a blind eye.
In many areas, there are instances of hostel inmates having confrontation with the local residents, who allege that the hostels are being used for all kinds of shady activities. The inmates are boozing, bringing girls to the hostels and even caught by the police in criminal cases like snatching and dacoities. Besides, they haphazardly park their vehicles creating problems for other motorists.
The hostels having a majority of students from Bihar and Jharkhand are harbouring hardcore criminals who are bringing in small arms from these States and supplying to local anti-socials. local residents do not protest out of fear, and those who dare to speak out are browbeaten to remain silent.
It might be mentioned that the Orissa High Court in a landmark judgement stopped the operation of more than 200 Kalyan Mandaps and other commercial establishments in Cuttack under the jurisdiction of the Cuttack Development Authority (CDA) for carrying out commercial activities in residential areas. The Bhubaneswar Development Authority (BDA) should have taken a leaf out it and banned commercial activities in the residential areas of the capital city, but it seems to be in deep slumber, said advocate Subrat Kumar Nanda.
‘’Though the Bhubaneswar Municipal Corporation (BMC) should have charged Holding Tax at commercial rates from the hostels, it has also remained indifferent even though it is losing huge amounts of revenue in the process. Besides, the house rents are skyrocketing as house owners are reluctant to give their houses to needy families on rent,” added Nanda.