IIT girls see ‘discrimination’ in lodging facilities

“Even in cases where female MTech/MSc students are expected to share a room,they should be sharing a double room and not small single rooms. These facts bring out a pattern of discrimination against PG girls. The discrimination,even if unintentional,is causing undue stress on research environment,” the petition said.

There are two girls’ hostels (10,11) at IIT-B. A wing of hostel 8 was converted into girls’ wing last year. The students have already submitted two petitions but nothing has come out of it,a student said on condition of anonymity. “While the number of students has increased considerably,it hasn’t been possible to build hostels at the same rate. A girls’ hostel is coming up but it may take two years. The students demanded that accommodation facilities should be equal for girls and boys. It’s a difficult issue and we need to figure out how we can redistribute hostels. There will be a meeting next week to review the problem,” said Devang Khakhar,IIT Bombay director.