New Delhi: A hostel founded in the year India became independent is now set to make way for a 32-storey residential block.
Delhi University has identified Jubilee Hall, established in 1947 to mark the university’s silver jubilee, along with the PG Men’s Hostel and the International Students’ House for demolition as part of the expansion of its hostel infrastructure. It has 206 seats, according to the university’s latest handbook. The tragedy highlighted the risks students face when they are forced to live in private paying guest accommodations due to the seat crunch.
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Speaking to TOI, dean of colleges Balram Pani, who also serves as the chairperson of the buildings committee, said the students would not be asked to vacate the existing hostels abruptly. Students will be shifted to completed blocks,” he said. Jubilee Hall, a postgraduate and research students’ residence and one of DU’s oldest hostels, was once the address of many prominent faces, such as former chief election commissioner JM Lyngdoh and former Chief Justice of India Ranjan Gogoi during their college days. The university has surveyed several older structures to identify sites that can be cleared for new multi-storeyed hostels, as it grapples with a severe shortage of student accommodation and limited space within its existing campuses. The hostel crunch came into sharper focus after the Satya Niketan building collapse, in which DU students were among those killed. Following the tragedy, DU asked its colleges to expedite hostel projects and submit proposals for additional accommodation. “Construction would be in phases. Download the TOI App.
The university has now prepared a detailed expansion plan comprising 12 hostel facilities across its campuses, with a combined proposed capacity of about 40,000 students. The university currently has only 7,210 hostel seats for a student population of around 2.5 lakh — enough to accommodate just 2.9% of its students. Of these, 3,422 seats are in university-run hostels and 3,788 in college hostels. DU does not have an exact count of outstation students, but estimates that at least 25% of its students come from outside Delhi. The proposed 40,000 additional rooms would take the university’s accommodation capacity to a substantially higher level, though it would still cover only around 16% of its total student population.
The scale of the proposed expansion is significant against DU’s existing capacity.
The plan, for which CPWD has submitted detailed project reports and cost estimates, was approved by DU’s building committee Wednesday and will now go before the finance committee for sanction, followed by the executive council for information.
Among the largest projects are two Y-shaped hostels at the Dhaka complex, each planned as a basement-plus-ground-plus-32-storey structure, together accommodating 6,000 students. Each hostel is estimated to cost Rs 900 crore each. Two more 32-storey blocks adjoining the Institute of Eminence, also within the Dhaka complex, are proposed to accommodate 5,850 students. These hostels will cost Rs 1,755 crore to make. Three additional UG hostel blocks will provide accommodation to 5,000 students at an estimated Rs 1,500 crore. The replacement building at Jubilee Hall will have 32 floors and accommodate around 7,000 students at a projected cost of Rs 2,100 crore. The PG Men’s Hostel will be replaced with a ground-plus-21-storey building for 2,000 students, while the International Students’ House will give way to a basement-plus-ground-plus-32-storey building for 2,500.
There are no hostels proposed in the South campus, which houses a large number of DU colleges. Other proposed facilities include working women’s hostels at Dhaka, a hostel at Veer Savarkar College in Rohanspura, and boys’ and girls’ hostels at DU’s west and east campuses. A skywalk connecting the faculty of technology and DU computer centre is also part of the plan, along with a new academic block. The new hostels are planned with three students accommodated in a single unit, with separate cubicles, beds, study areas, wardrobes and individual balconies.