First-year MNLU Nagpur women students struggle at off-campus hostel

First-year female students at Maharashtra National Law University, Nagpur (MNLU Nagpur) have been residing at an off-campus hostel in Dongargaon with the promise of being eventually relocated to campus accommodation.

Students have shared personal accounts of safety concerns, eve-teasing incidents, lack of privacy and health risks, all of which has been conveyed to the administration via emails.

Despite paying ₹3.65 lakh per annum for residential hostel accommodations, students are forced to endure these challenges.

In a recent Open House conducted with students and the administration, the response was that the delay in constructing on-campus hostels is due to lack of funds being released by the State.

Vice-Chancellor Prof Vijender Kumar accompanied the warden to the off-campus hostel to pacify students who complained of the lack of basic infrastructure such as electricity and Wi-Fi.

A Search Committee has been constituted and tasked with identifying alternative off-campus hostel accommodation. However, no specific timeline has been provided regarding when the relocation will take place or when on-campus construction will commence.

With less than a fortnight left for the end-semester exams, there is a growing concern that the issue will be deferred until the next academic session, and that the incoming batch of 2025-29 will face the same challenges all over again.

The issue of hostel accommodation has been under discussion for the past three years and was initially raised by the 2022-27 batch, then by the 2023-28 batch, to which a lottery system was introduced to shift students to on-campus hostels in phases.

Since there are fewer male students, most of whom have been accommodated in the on-campus hostels, this issue disproportionately affects female students.

Attempts to reach out to the MNLU Nagpur administration did not yield a response at the time of publishing this story.