Anna University aspirants sleep on footpath

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Over 50 engineering aspirants and their parents, who come to Anna University daily for counselling, sleep on the footpaths next to the university.

While many outstation students prefer to come a day ahead of their counselling session, they don’t have any place to sleep and are forced to stay on the footpath.

Some of the parents said that they had come from far off towns like Pudukottai, Neyveli, Ramanathapuram and Gobichettipalayam and had arrived a day earlier as they had to attend the first batch of counselling at 9 am.

“We are coming from Ramanathapuram. If our train came in late we would miss the first batch so we took a day bus and came to Chennai tonight.

Now it’s already midnight and it is difficult for us to get an accommodation so we have decided to sleep on the pavement,” said a parent.

A student on condition of anonymity said that the varsity should provide temporary accommodations for students coming from far flung areas.

“A room in a decent lodge costs about Rs 400 a day and as we are from a poor economic background, we cannot spend so much,” he added.

A university faculty said that at least the university could allow students and parents to use its auditorium as a dormitory.

“The university can, alternately, revert to the original method of decentralised counselling at Chennai, Tiruchy, Madurai and Coimbatore so that students from those areas can go to the respective counselling centres without wasting time and money”, the faculty added.