As the stalemate over the Four-Year Undergraduate Programme (FYUP) persists at the Delhi University (DU), students from other States who are seeking admission to DU and their parents, are stuck in a quandary. Anxiously waiting for commencement of admission process in the university, they are forced to stay put in the Capital. Majority of them have been lodging in hotels or Paying Guest (PG) accommodations and spending exorbitantly every day. Others have also been camping at friends and relatives’ place.
Every year the university seems to fulfil needs of hundreds of aspirants from across the country. But this year it doesn’t seem to be going the university’s way. For these parents and students there is no option but to stay put in Delhi until the issue is resolved. This has resulted in them spending anything between Rs5,000 and Rs10,000.
Jothy Arasu from Tamil Nadu, who had accompanied her daughter and husband, leaving her 15-year-old son alone at home, said they are incurring an expenditure of nearly Rs10,000 per day. “Our daily expense turns out to be almost this much and it is really unaffordable. We have been here for the past four days and had to cancel our return ticket for June 27,” Arasu said.
The race in the campus is now not only for seats but also for getting a PG accommodation or a room for rent. According to parents, all hotels in Paharganj are booked because of this fiasco. “The PGs around the campus are full and the ones which are vacant are not letting us stay for a week or two,” said Dr Rajesh Tewary who accompanied his son all the way from Bihar to get admission.
While expressing their concern over protracted impasse in the university, several parents also claimed that they are really under pressure because they had to extend their leaves from work. They also blamed university authority for keeping them in the dark. “We do not receive any clear information from the university officials due to which we are not able to decide anything. It is affecting our work back home. We are forced to get our leaves extended,” said Manoj Thakuriya from Assam.
“A lot of students have even left other colleges to get admission to DU. Our daughter has got admission to a college in Shillong and the classes over there have started too. But we are waiting for cut-off list to come out,” added Kusum Burman, a mother from North-East.