As students return to campuses, Pune’s edu ecosystem flourishes

PUNE Owing to an increase in the number of students across the city, especially at nearby university and college campuses after the same reopened last month, PG hostels, flats, snack centres, monthly food mess and other ecosystems based on these students are once again gaining momentum

PUNE Owing to an increase in the number of students across the city, especially at nearby university and college campuses after the same reopened last month, PG hostels, flats, snack centres, monthly food mess and other ecosystems based on these students are once again gaining momentum. So much so that the rates of PG hostels, food joints and even the monthly food mess for students have now increased vis-à-vis pre-Covid days.

Students are seen outside PICT college, Dhankawdi, on Tuesday. (Ravindra Joshi/HT PHOTO)

There are several food joints or entire food areas aka khau gallis outside colleges where youths have been thronging since the past few weeks. These range from the khau galli outside Bharati Vidyapeeth college to food joints and snack centres outside MIT college in Kothrud to the khau galli around the Hatti Ganpati chowk area in Sadashiv peth.

Sanika Bhatia, a student from Bharati Vidyapeeth college, said, “I stay in a private PG hostel in Bharati Vidyapeeth area. I returned to Pune from my native place in Indore last month. Prior to Covid-19, I used to pay Rs6,000 per month for PG hostel rent, which has now increased to Rs9,000. The rates of all private hostels and flats near private universities and colleges have drastically increased after the pandemic. But since we do not have any option, we have to pay the rent to attend offline college lectures now.”

While for Ketan Tarde, paying the monthly food mess charges is becoming difficult, “I am from Sindhudurg and studying engineering in one of the colleges in Pune, but we friends have rented a flat together. Since we returned to Pune in January this year, we are having our dinner at a food mess near our flat. It charges Rs2,000 for one-time meals and Rs3,500 for two-time meals. These rates have risen drastically. Before the pandemic, the monthly food mess charges were around Rs2,000 to Rs2,500 for two-time meals,” Tarde said.

As all colleges and universities have started offline lectures and university semester examinations are also going on, students from outside Pune are preferring to stay here and attend offline classes. In the last two years due to the pandemic, there were hardly any offline classes taken and now, things are going back to the way they were before the pandemic.

“It is good to see students around the college campus, on roads and around college areas. As Pune is the hub of education and many prominent universities and colleges are here, lakhs of students across the country and even from abroad come here to study. An entire economy is based on these students, which makes the city more important in the field of education,” said Rajendra Zunjarrao, principal, Modern College of Arts, Science and Commerce, Shivajinagar.