EFLU Lucknow Students Protest Against Poor Infra, Lack of Facilities

Lucknow: Poor infrastructure at the Lucknow chapter of English and Foreign Languages University (EFLU), a central university, has forced students to launch a protest since the past one week. 

The students have been demanding better hostel facilities, a campus which is not a rented one, playground, sanitation and extended library timings. 

Aditya Anand, the student union president, says that the varsity administration had been promising various things but nothing has been done in the past 13 years. 

“The students are now not enrolling for M.Phil and PGDTE programmes because of poor infrastructure. The present strength of the Lucknow unit is little over 100 people, but the capacity is to hold 250 students. This 

has happened because there is no infrastructure. Every day students suffer due to lack of tables and chairs. There are no sick rooms, no ambulance, nothing. You can even ask the alumni,” he says.  

Another student, Akhil Jose, who hails Kerala, narrating his ordeal said EFLU’s was the worst ever hostel he had seen in his entire life. 

“I came a long distance from Kerala to study here. This is one of the worst hostels I have lived in. I have lost all hope. I cannot tell you how horrible it is for us to live here and study,” Jos said, adding that “one of the most basic problems is that the hostel is situated adjacent to a commercial lawn where marriages and exhibitions are held very often. I was once assaulted by a group of drunkards who entered our hostel to beat and abuse us. We complained to the university, they listened, but did not act. We did not go to the police because we had faith in our university and teachers.”

Painting a grimmer picture, Jose said:  “There is no canteen for the students while the only small sized playground is full of filth, where sewage flows due to which a student recently took ill and was later diagnosed with malaria and diarrhoea.”

Fee Disparity and Sanitation Problems

While the boys pay Rs 900 per semester for the hostel fee, female students have to pay Rs 4,500 per month for the same, complained Ruchi Priyadarshani, who is the girls’ representative at EFLU.

“Our hostel is seven kilometers away from the city, due to which public transport facility is not very accessible. This is affecting our studies. Also we are not able to access the library, which is open only till 7 p.m. We have written several applications regarding our problems, but nothing has been done so far by the authorities. The infrastructure is poor, and there are no sanitary pad vending machines in female toilets,” Ruchi said. 

She alleged that even the mess food was also not up to the mark. 

When asked, Rajneesh Arora, the director of the university’s Lucknow unit, said there were some problems in the campus and the administration was looking to fix them as soon as possible. 

“We have written to the government and are hopeful of getting a building of our own soon. Since it is a rented building so we cannot do much. But the university has got the repairing of the building done many times in the past,” he said, adding, “The university will fix everything soon.”

The writer is an independent journalist based in Uttar Pradesh.