Journalism of Courage
Lack of facilities in university hostels and poor quality of food in refectories and canteens were some of the issues taken up at the University of Pune senate meet on Saturday,the first meeting held after Wasudev Gade took over as the Vice-Chancellor.
Several senate members,including Santosh Dhore,Dadabhau Shinalkar,Shashikant Tikote,took up the issue and created a ruckus at the meet. They are members of the committee that was set up in the last meet to look into these issues.
Members also said water was unavailable during the morning hours and there were no plugpoints for charging phones.
Replying,Sanjeev Sonwane,member,management council,said the tenure of the present contractor was about to end and the administration had decided to change the contractor. He added that the administration was planning to construct a water tank with a capacity of 20 lakh litres to solve the water problem.
Gade acknowledged the problems and said the issues needed to be addressed immediately.
We have set up a one-member committee under Sanjeev Sonwane to take an account of the day-to-day problems faced by the students and to propose action to resolve them. Another committee under V B Gaikwad has also been set up to find solutions to long-term issues. The committees will take some time to submit their findings, he said.
Another member Arun Pandarkar pressed renovating Public Relation Office and the first floor of the BCUD centre on an urgent basis.
The office is the face of the University as it disseminates the information about various programmes,schemes and events taken up by the University. It is in a dilapidated state and does not provide necessary facilities to visitors, Pandarkar said.
Gade said several renovation projects were in the offing and work is scheduled to begin in few months.
