Utkal students seek eviction of encroachers
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Bhubaneswar: Encroachment on the Utkal University campus has not been cleared for a long time, alleged students on Saturday. Around 30 acres out of 398.9 acres of university land have been encroached by slum dwellers.
The area, if reclaimed, will help the institute with future expansion, they said.
Students said the area behind the two boys' hostels has a slum. A few families were staying there some years ago, but now the size is getting bigger. They have constructed cow sheds, backyard poultry and kitchen gardens on the encroached land.
Sachidananda Moharana, a PG student, said slum dwellers of Patharbandha have created a passage by damaging the boundary wall of the university.
"They mostly use the road passing through the university campus. Sometimes non-students create a ruckus on the campus and use the route to flee," he added.
He said a few family members of some retired employees are also staying in the staff quarters. Apart from the slum, he said, some staff quarters have been used unauthorisedly by people from outside. "Why are they not being evicted from the university campus?" he asked.
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Saswat Anurag Sahu, another PG student, alleged that some university staff don't leave the staff quarters even after retirement. "Some of the serving staff, staying outside the campus in apartments, put the staff quarters on rent. Outsiders staying in the staff quarters on rent misuse the facilities for illegal work. Recently, drugs were seized from a staff quarter," he added.
Students have been demanding closing of the porous boundary walls for the sake of security.
Debesh Dash, a law student, said outsiders enter the university via three sides and create problems on the campus. "What's the point of guarding two gates with security systems if our boundaries are open in three places?" he added.
"I do not know why a slum is on the campus. Why is it not being shifted? We want our campus to have closed boundaries with properly guarded gates and be free from encroachment," said another student.
Students have staged protests in front of the office of the vice-chancellor several times earlier, demanding restrictions on the entry of outsiders, security on the campus, and an encroachment-free campus. The last protest was on April 24.
Registrar Mrutyunjay Panda told TOI that the university has raised the issue with the state govt several times. "Former VC Sabita Acharya wrote letters to the govt to resolve the encroachment issue," he added.
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