THE JHARKHAND STORY NETWORK
Daltonganj, May 6: 390 plus medical students of the Medinirai Medical College at Pokhraha in Daltonganj abstained from attending their theory and practical classes on Monday today in protest against the pathetic condition of the availability of drinking water and electricity on the campus.
There live the campus 100 odd members of the faculties and their family members who too bear the brunt of the water and electricity crisis here.
Acute crisis of water and electricity
Boys and girls have a separate 7 storeyed each hostel for them which is worst hit by the acute crisis of water and electricity. There is a correlation between the two.
Girls and boys are scared of using toilets as they know the availability of water there may deceive them at any moment.
Taking a bath in summer here has become an expensive luxury for the medical boys and girls just for the sake of water.
No less bad is the availability of electricity. It is erratic. The crisis of the water and electricity are intertwined.
MBBS students buy water
MBBS students are demanding adequate water and electricity whose crisis is telling upon the studies and mental health of the students in this medical college. The medical students said they were buying water.
Principal of the medical college Dr Kamender Prasad said, “There is an acute crisis of water and electricity. The college is approaching the concerned government officials to mitigate the sufferings but in vain.”
The issue of bringing in water from the Kacharwa Dam has been hanging fire for 5 years.
So is the issue of a separate sub-power grid for this medical college. It is in limbo.
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Request for 10 water tankers
The principal has shot off a letter to the city commissioner today requesting 5 water tankers in the morning and 5 water tankers in the evening.
The Medininagar municipal corporation commissioner Md Jawed Hussain, IAS when apprised of the class boycott of the medical students here demanding water said, “Our water tankers are taking down water in the campus. 2 water tankers have been pressed into it.”
When told further that 2 water tankers each having capacity of 2500 litres of water are too insufficient and inadequate for meeting the demands of water in the medical college here and so it will be in the fitness of thing to press in 5 water tankers each in the morning and 5 water tankers in the evening to which the city commissioner Md Jawed Hussain said, “That will be done. We will make a plan for it. 5 water tankers in the morning and 5 water tankers in the evening.”
Kacharwa Dam
The city commissioner further said, ” Our officials had told the college management to have a submersible pump in the Kacharwa Dam from where water can be lifted for the college.”
The city commissioner said, “We don’t understand what reservations have this medical about it.”
It is the principal Dr Kamender Prasad who said, “The submersible pump is no ordinary thing. Who will keep guarding it at night? The locale where the Kacharwa Dam is infamous for all the wrong reasons.”
The medical college is exploring as to whether if the water crisis continues to persist beyond human endurance then should online classes be introduced asking the inmates of the hostels of boys and girls to pack up and go home till the water crisis eases.
Principal Dr Kamender Prasad holds views contrary to the launching of online classes just for the sake of the water crisis hoping the water crisis will be sorted out sooner while a pragmatic faculty there maintained that online classes can be no bad idea so long this crisis holds over this medical college.
Another faculty sitting there reminded me that medical college classes have gone online in Patna Bihar.
However, one thing is most evident. It’s the medical students who are running out of patience. They want water and electricity and no authority can afford to say no to what they are asking for.
If the medical college management just does not race against time and arranges water and electricity for the students as well as for 100 odd members of the faculties and their family members, any unseemly episode may occur here in this medical college at any moment.
Amidst these human miseries, there is a blame game in this medical college. It is boys and girls who are accused of wasting water. It is said girls waste more water than boys.
On the other hand boys and girls accuse medical college management of keeping huge generators set idle for hours and hours just citing it consumes huge litres of diesel while they roast in this acute summer.
There is a deficit of trust between the two in this medical college where faculties and students just look the other way.
