Girl students stage protest against dilapidated buildings, intruders at hostel

Agitation returned to the Government Siddha Medical College Hospital in Palayamkottai again as girl students, demanding reconstruction of the dilapidated hostel and classroom buildings and measures to ensure safety of students, staged a protest on the college premises on Monday.

Since the college is said to be functioning from a cramped space ever since it came into being in 1964, the 800-odd undergraduate, postgraduate and nursing students are seeking shifting of the college and the hostel to a spacious area for the past several years. To highlight this demand, they had staged a range of agitations in the past.

 Even though the State government initially decided to establish a Government Siddha Medical University near the Western Ghats beyond Kadayanallur in Tenkasi district along with the college and the hospital, which is now attracting around 1,000 patients every day, the proposal was shelved without specifying any reason.

Movement of strangers, who enter the hostel campus through the damaged compound walls and doors, has increased in the recent times. Since there is no safety for us, the college administration should post security personnel on the college and hostel premises at night. To make surveillance effective, the college should install CCTV cameras at vantage points,” said the students who staged the protest in front of the Principal’s chamber.

 The protesting students said the strangers, who gain entry into the hostel block through the narrow lane on the northern side in the early hours, misbehave with the girl students sleeping near the damaged windows. “The last incident happened just three days ago,” the students said.

 The five-hour-long agitation was withdrawn after the faculty members assured them that their demands would be fulfilled within a month.