A section of students of Presidency University, who have been demanding accommodation in the Hindu hostel which is presently under repair, today said they will launch a signature campaign apart from continuing with their sit-in to bolster their demand.
Around 50 students have been agitating in the university campus since Augist 3.
A spokesman of the agitating students, Subho Biswas, told PTI, the boarders will launch a signature campaign among the university students from Monday to raise awareness about the difficulties faced by the boarders of the Hindu Hostel and the reasons behind the current stir.
"While continuing the sit-in, we will take the battle among the students in general and seek their opinion about the future course of action by undertaking a signature campaign. We will then organise a mass convention in the first week of September and based on the feedback from these two campaigns, we will decide whether to approach any higher authority to address our demand," Biswas, one of the 50 boarders, said.
Ayan Chakraborty, an activist of students' body Independent Consolidation (IC), said a part of the corridor of the university building has been turned into a makeshift hostel without causing any difficulty to anybody.
He said there had been no further communication with Vice Chancellor Anuradha Lohia or any varsity official on the issue after the V-C talked to them on August 8.
"The V-C talked to the students last week but on a different issue and the hostel agenda did not figure," he said.
A university spokesman said, "We have already explained the situation to the students. We had promised to them that the Hindu Hostel can be thrown open to them only after PWD declares it fit for use after renovation. We can only hope they will understand the situation."
A group of 36 teachers of the university had earlier urged the agitating students to withdraw their stir promising them to monitor renovation work of the Hindu Hostel building and go back to the rented premises at New Town, about 18 km away from the university campus, for the time being.
"We are not disrupting the academic or administrative work. We are just staying at a particular place in the campus," Chakraborty said.
The students claimed that renovation in two of the six blocks of the Hindu Hostel building has already been completed and they should be accommodated in these two blocks.
The Hindu Hostel, adjoining the College Street institution, had been shut down for repairs on July 29, 2015 and 150 boarders were shifted to a rented accommodation at New Town.
The Presidency authorities had last year assured the students that all the six blocks of the hostel would be opened for the boarders after completion of renovation work by the first week of August this year.
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