CHENNAI: Will you believe that a few students, allotted some courses like bio-technology in IIT Madras this year, gave up the seats mainly because they found the facilities in the hostels inadequate? At hind sight it was not a bad decision, as over 1000 students had to go without lunch at the college’s common mess on the first couple of days after classes started for this academic year on August 1.These are just some of the pointers to a deterioration in infrastructure in the institution, which has been ailing due to mismanagement, improper utilisation of funds and lack of commitment among the staff. As some long-time faculty members and alumni of the prestigious institution say, the present day conditions in the 250-acre campus, where two to three students now have to share a hostel room, which was originally meant for single occupancy, can have a negative impact on the academics, leading to a dwindle in overall standards.Though the space crunch started way back in 2008, when student intake was increased to provide for OBC reservation in IITs, the management failed to address the problem. In March 2008, around 450 hostel rooms remained vacant after providing single rooms for the students. But efforts were not made to increase the number of rooms, though `80 crore was sanctioned in 2008 to develop additional facilities. Faculty members suspect that funds were diverted elsewhere, particularly the IIT Research Park, a dream project of former Director, M S Ananth.Besides creating more rooms in the place of the old dining halls and common rooms in the hostels, the management did nothing. The centralisation of the mess with a capacity to serve 4000 persons in two shifts was the reason why students went without food in the first week of August.Since IIT is an autonomous institution where all academic assessments are made in-campus, students dread speaking out and demanding facilities from the authorities, say a faculty member, adding that in some cases when students did take up the issue and gave memorandums, they were threatened with dire consequences.When two residential blocks were converted into women’s hostels, and girl students were asked to share each room in the house with another, they gave a memorandum to their head of department, only to be cowed down with open threats.Even class rooms and laboratories have become scarce that students have been divided into shifts. Earlier, the morning hours were devoted for theory classes and the afternoons for laboratory work. But now, one batch attends class in the morning and the other work in the laboratory and vice-versa. This itself is taking a toll on the academic performance, says a faculty member, pointing to the fact that he sees many students dozing-off during the afternoon classes.Already, the average academic performance of students has gone down drastically, complained a lecturer, citing the manner in which JEE teaching shops train IIT aspirants. The moment the students enter the institute, the pattern of study changes and they find it difficult to cope up with it. Now, with cramped spaces to live in, it will only worsen, said the lecturer.Giving an overall view of the campus getting crowded with no matching infrastructure, a staff said that the number of students in March 2008 was 5043. Since then, the numbers have been going up every year with 1545 additional admissions in July 2008 and January 2009 (IIT Madras admits students both in July and January semesters), 1850 in 2009 and 2010, 2214 in 2010 and 2011.But no new hostels, class rooms or dining halls have been added in the last two years since 2008. In fact, in almost all the hostels, independent mess has been closed except two hostels ‘Cauvery’ and ‘Krishna’. Out of a total of 19 hostels that exist in the IIT campus, 15 hostels have ground plus three floors, 11 hostels without any lift, 4 hostels with lift. Four more hostels have ground plus two floors without lift. The women’s hostel ‘Sharavathi’ has five floors, but no lift. In women’s hostel ‘Sarayu’, the dining hall and mess have been kept unused for the last three years.These issues, some students claim, are just the tip of the iceberg. There is also no way of getting emergency medical help in the campus, which now houses close to 7000 students and this came to light in March 2010 when a student died after taking ill during the celebrations on the night of his 20th birthday.
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