Conversion of Dyal Singh Evening College into morning college sparks protests

NEW DELHI: Students of Dyal Singh College staged a protest on Monday over the conversion of the Evening College into a morning one.

Students and professors of Dyal Singh (Morning) College, along with members of Students' Federation of India, called for the protest to "highlight the decaying infrastructure and the unjust and dictatorial way through which the decision has been taken without taking into account all stakeholders.

"The chairman went ahead with his decision, in spite of objections from morning principal and professors," an agitator said.

Earlier, on Saturday, the administrative department of the College had decided to rename its Evening College as 'Vande Mataram Mahavidyalaya'.

A notification in this regard was issued and accepted, after it was decided to turn Dyal Singh (Evening) College into a full-fledged day college.

Another student further said that Dyal Singh College, one of Delhi University's premier institutions, is facing an existential crisis and a sever space crunch.

The college has nearly 6,000 students, 250 teachers and 125 staff members alone in the morning shift.

"On working days, from 8 am to 5 pm, the Morning College has been sharing rooms with the Evening College," said Utkarsh, a protestor.

Meanwhile, with the current scheme of choice based credit system (CBCS) teaching, the Morning College had to conduct 2,518 theory classes, with 1,211 tutorials.

However, according to a National Assessment and Accreditation Council report, there is only space for 2,480 theory classes and 702 tutorials.

"There is absolutely no space for development of new infrastructure within the campus.

"Somehow, a part of the campus playground has been allotted to the Delhi Metro Rail Corporation. Consequently, the land in front of the college has been rendered unusable due to the construction of a huge parking for Commonwealth Games," said a professor at the college.