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In my humble views, if the following issues are addressed by the incumbent officials of AMU, the ‘rising misgivings’ can be allayed and the detractors (if any) can be made to stay silently on margins.
1. CANTEEN: Few years back we heard that the AMU will soon have a modern, well provisioned Canteen, where students will get a variety of foods and refreshments at as much reasonable prices as possible. Was this information correct? If yes, then what happened to it?
During the sine die closure of the AMU (September-November 2007), one of the most distinguished alumni of the AMU and presently the VC of another Central university, had diagnosed in his column in the Indian Express that, one of the reasons why do the AMU students’ upsurge often take recourse to rowdy-ism and violence, is that the AMU does not offer its students a good canteen for good foods, refreshments and recreation/amusements.
Seeing the present condition of the AMU canteen and comparing them with various canteens of JNU, one inevitably feels like endorsing the diagnosis. It must be added here that the JNU has less than 4,000 students, yet has so many canteens, but AMU got about 30,000 students with only one CANTEEN [Kindly don’t try to dismiss it by citing that every residential Hall of AMU has a canteen, because these so called canteens are mockery in the name of canteen, with some slice breads/matris, eggs and nothing else].
2. Unlike JNU [where there is a marketing complex, known as Kamal Complex, with Quraishi’s delicious and reasonably priced veg. and non-veg. foods of a quality comparable with those of good restaurants, fruit and vegetable shops, dairy, ice-cream and juice shops, book stall and stationery shops, general store and medicine shop and whatnot], our AMU has unreasonably failed to develop that sort of marketing complex (es) within the (now almost completely fenced) campus.
3. Incidences of eve-teasing [particularly around the Faculty of Arts] have once again increased. May one hope that the Proctorial Monitoring will be enhanced and tightened to check this menace, otherwise the detractors against the VC and his team and the disgruntled elements within the campus (if any) may try to fish in the troubled waters at some inauspicious moments.
4. Avoiding/deferring the selection committees for recruitments/promotions are already understandably adding to the woes. There is also a fear that such discontentments might be exploited by such detractors to unsettle the already dauntingly challenged VC and his team.
5. Power Crisis: The previous VC had clinched an agreement [with the Power Secretary of the UP Govt.’s energy Dept] for un-interrupted power supply within the campus of AMU which worked well for few months [it must be added here that the AMU’s residential quarters pay the bills of electricity at industrial rates, rather than at ‘subsidized’ domestic rates], but of late, there is a gross violation of that agreement, and general feeling/perception is that the present VC is not doing enough to resolve it by pursuing that agreement with urgency and stridency.
6. The previous office bearers of the AMU Teachers’ Association had assured that every faculty will soon get computers with internet, [funded by the UGC, and ‘internal’ 4 digit phone connections, which has already been given in many other Central universities long before], in their respective chambers. But the AMU is alleged to treating its teachers with contempt in the sense that the non teaching employees of comparable pay scales have even got luxury chairs and air conditioners/coolers in their chambers.
7. The Teachers’ Hostel near M.M. Hall is being simultaneously allotted/offered both to the teachers as well as to the non teaching employees (NTEs). One does not know when, how and why was it de-categorized for the NTEs, which is mandatory as per the govt’s rules. Water-supply to these quarters is very poor, irregular and inadequate. Water leakage and water-logging with overgrown grasses in the lawns [towards which the windows of the bedrooms and kitchens open] are another menace, not being taken care of by the concerned departments. After all, the dauntingly preoccupied individual of VC can not look into every ‘minute’ things of AMU; the relevant departments have to look into these. Smoking of the mosquito repellents is a practice confined merely to the residences of the higher functionaries.
8. To the best of my knowledge (I may be corrected), the UGC and almost all other Central universities have done away with the exploitative practice of having Guest Faculties on sanctioned posts, but the AMU continues with this disgustingly exploitative practice. I hope it may not be offending the office bearers of the AMUTA, if someone asks what their position on this particular issue is.
[While posting these lines, the Teachers' Hostel is without water, and needless to detail the resultant agonies, complaints to the Building Department remains unheard since last two years as the overhead tank does not store water in most of the quarters of this hostel. In fact, many times the Junior Engineer has passed unwelcome remarks. Moreover, recent hike in the license fee was accompanied with the assurances that the services will be improved. ]
Is AMU listening? Regards,
Mohammad Sajjad |
