SRINAGAR: Amid freezing temperatures in the Valley, Cluster University Srinagar (CUS) has failed to put in place appropriate heating arrangements for students appearing in their semester-end examinations.
The varsity charged Rs 1600 including “hot and cold charges” from each students before examinations. But the large-scale complaints about lack of proper heating in examination halls have raised questions about the use of funds.
On Thursday, students from three main city colleges comprising Sri Pratap College, Amar Singh College and Government Degree College Bemina complained about lack of heating facility at their examination centres located at SP College. They are pursuing integrated programmes at the CUS and were sitting in their semester-end exams.
They complained that they could hardly write their papers on as their hands turned numb due to biting cold.
Many alleged defunct heaters were put in examination halls.
“The heaters in classrooms did not work at all. Not to talk of the students, even the staff on duty was left to shiver,” an aggrieved student said.
Faisal, who is pursuing Integrated Political Science at Government Degree College, Bemina said he was compelled to hand over his answer script 20 minutes before the stipulated time because of the cold. He said he could not concentrate properly due to the “insufficient” heating arrangement.
Another student pursuing integrated programme in economics at Amar Singh College too complained about lack of heating arrangements at SP College, where they are appearing in the ongoing semester-end exams.
Students feared that poor heating arrangements might cost them dearly in terms of the score as two more papers were scheduled in coming days.
Registrar CUS, Dr Abdul Hamid Sheikh denied the complaints about lack of heating arrangements.
However, Principal SP College, Prof Khurshid A Khan said students’ demand of heating arrangement is genuine but there are some “limitations”.
According to him, there is a provision of keeping only one heater in an examination hall.
“The students’ demand of additional heaters might be genuine, but the thing is that we too have our limitations in this regard,” Khan added.

Irshad Khan