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Ludhiana: PAU to upgrade residential facilities for students
The Punjab Agricultural University (PAU) here has proposed to spend ₹8 crore for renovating the hostels to provide better boarding facilities for the students.
The Punjab Agricultural University (PAU) here has proposed to spend ₹8 crore for renovating the hostels to provide better boarding facilities for the students.
The state government had, earlier this year, announced a special grant of ₹40 crore for the varsity, the first since the university was established in 1962. Last month PAU submitted the proposals for the projects it would undertake with the grant. This includes ₹8 crore earmarked for improving the living conditions for the students.
“Besides some small renovations here and there, the hostels have never had any major renovations ever since they were made,” said vice-chancellor (VC) Satbir Singh Gosal.
“So we are now going to completely renovate these washrooms with modern fittings,” he added.
Besides the washrooms, the hostel number 14 (girls) and 15 (boys) is going to get a new floor to accommodate more students. “These hostels were made with a scope of adding a floor later. With the new floors we are hoping to accommodate 260 more students in these hostels,” said dean students welfare (DSW), Nirmal Jaura.
The hostels will also have study rooms and indoor sports facilities. “We are planning to convert the common rooms at the hostels into study rooms, which we will try to keep air conditioned, to encourage students to work on their sitting,” added Jaura.
“Students these days spend their free time in sedentary activities like consuming content on their devices, but we wish to give them some indoor sports facilities so that they have some avenue for recreation other than the screens.”
PAU at present has 14 hostels in total. Seven for girls, six for boys, and one international hostel. However, the university still struggles to accommodate a lot of the remaining students. To address this problem, a separate proposal for a new ten-storey hostel has been sent to the Union government, asking for ₹90 crore.
“The number of students keeps on growing, and we can’t accommodate all of them with the boarding facilities we have at present. So we sent a proposal to the state government for a new hostel that would cost around ₹90 crore to build. The state government has forwarded the case to the Union. We hope that it will be accepted soon,” said VC Gosal.
