Lucknow University hostel residents burned effigies of senior university officials on Dussehra, alleging irregularities in hostel allotment and poor-quality food and drinking water, after a month of complaints and seven days of continuous protest.
The students targeted Vice-Chancellor Prof JP Saini, Dean of Students’ Welfare Prof Amita Kanaujia and Chief Provost Prof Aashees Awasthi during the protest. Their demands include a transparent hostel allotment process and action from the university administration over the conditions faced by residents.
The dispute has brought basic residential services on the university’s campuses into focus. The complaints reported by students cover both the allocation of hostel accommodation and the day-to-day provision of food and water, services that are central to the functioning of a university residential system.
According to university officials, the vice-chancellor inspected hostels on both campuses after the complaints. The administration has also formed a 10-member committee to monitor food quality in the hostels. The committee’s stated role is to oversee the food arrangements as students continue to raise concerns about what is being served.
University officials attributed the water-related problems to issues with the boring system. They said repairs were underway, indicating that the administration has linked the reported drinking-water difficulties to the campus’s groundwater extraction and supply infrastructure.
The protest followed a month of complaints from hostel residents, according to the report. Students have maintained a continuous sit-in for seven days, seeking a response to their allegations and a more transparent process for hostel allotment. The duration of the sit-in suggests that the issue has moved beyond an isolated complaint and become a sustained dispute between residents and the administration.
Hostel allotment is an administrative issue with direct consequences for students who depend on campus accommodation. Any lack of clarity in the process can affect access to rooms, while deficiencies in food and drinking-water systems have an immediate bearing on residents’ daily lives. The university’s response has therefore combined an administrative review of food quality with repairs to the water system.
The reported action does not yet resolve the students’ wider demand for transparency in hostel allocation. The university has announced the monitoring committee and inspections, while repairs to the boring system are in progress. The next developments will depend on the committee’s monitoring and the administration’s response to the students’ allotment-related complaints.
