Not enough rooms,DU colleges hold classes in portable cabins

Many colleges have admitted twice or thrice the sanctioned strength in some of the courses

Its a case of too many students and too little space. Many Delhi University colleges,grappling with the problem of over-admissions and the impossibility of creating infrastructure overnight,have resorted to putting up semi-permanent structures portable cabins to hold classes.

At Ramanujan College,formerly known as Deshbandhu Evening College,around 15 portable cabins will serve as classrooms when the new session begins on July 24.

The construction began around June 5 and these rooms will be ready by July 18. The cabins will have false ceiling and a three-inch thick roof,which will keep the rooms cool. The rooms will also have LCD screens and they will be ICT-enabled. We are also going to use the auditorium it can accommodate around 100-120 students as classrooms, Ramanujan College principal S P Aggarwal said.

The college has seen an overwhelming response for courses such as computer science,mathematics and political science.

Against a sanctioned strength of 62 seats in BTech computer science,140 students have been admitted. In Mathematics,110 admissions have been made against 62 seats and political science has seen 90 admissions.

According to college authorities,the semi-permanent structures will be done away with once the new college building comes up. In the next two years,we expect to have in place an academic block which will also have a students facility centre. The next phase of construction would see more blocks coming up a library,administration block,lecture halls and hostels for girls and boys. These will be completed within the next five years, Aggarwal said.

While Ramanujan is getting portable cabins only this year,several other DU colleges have been holding classes in these semi-permanent structures for quite some time now.

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Dyal Singh College,for instance,constructed eight porta cabins in 2011 apart from seven bamboo rooms in 2009.

Dyal Singh College principal I S Bakshi said,We have admitted approximately three times the sanctioned student strength in political science and around twice the sanctioned strength in commerce.

Despite the increase in student intake,Bakshi said the college will be able to manage classes with the available infrastructure.

I dont see any major problem with regard to over-admissions. For the last five years,the college has bamboo rooms and porta cabins. These are not air-conditioned but are well-ventilated, he said.

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In about two months time,Deshbandhu College also plans to add eight more pre-fabricated rooms. Against a sanctioned strength of 1,400,the college has admitted nearly 2,000 students. We got porta cabins last year. The additional eight rooms are pre-fabricated structures and we have got approval for their construction, principal of Deshbandhu College

A K Arora said.

Similarly,Atma Ram Sanatan Dharma College has also had portable cabins since 2009 and plans to upgrade them this year. We will install ACs in the porta cabins this year. We have three classrooms,a students union room and a boys common room. Two labs one for zoology and a dry chemistry lab have also been functioning in these porta cabins. We spent around Rs 58 lakh to build them, ARSD principal Sandeep Sharma said.