Srinagar: The students of Kashmir University’s various departments have resented the varsity administration’s inability to provide adequate heating arrangements in classes amid the chilling cold.
With feeble winter sun hardly reaching into classrooms, the temperature inside is very cold as compared to the outside, necessitating heating arrangements inside the departments, students said.
The dearth of heating arrangements is a major distraction during classworks, they lamented.
Those departments with heating arrangements in place are equipped with Gas-Heaters while some have Air Conditioners installed. Gas-Heaters, students say have led to a couple of asphyxiation cases in the past one-week.
Fearing more cases, students say they don’t turn these gas-operated heating appliances on now.
“Every classroom must be equipped with Air Conditioners,” students demanded.
However, Varsity’s Registrar, Dr. Nisar Ahmad Mir said that it was impossible to install Air Conditioners in every department, for many of them are four-decades-old and that “their electric wiring is fragile to support the load of AC.”
Asked if the asphyxiation reports had come to the KU’s apex body’s notice, Mir said that there was no such case and that it is a very rare incident.
He however said that departments are given free choice of whether to use gas-heaters or coal-operated Bukharis. “We have procured all the necessary equipment for the heating arrangements and it is up to the department authorities whether they want Gas or Coal Bukharis,” he said.
Regarding departments that are yet to be equipped with any kind of heating apparatuses, Mir said that “By Monday, every department will be having the necessary heating arrangements installed.”
The administration as per Mir has tied-up with an agency to hire labourers for operating Coal Bukharis.
“The formalities are completed and tomorrow (Friday) we have set-up a final meeting with the agency to seal the pact and their promise to provide men for this purpose,” Mir said.
For now, he said that departments equipped with coal-bukharis can ask their own labour force to do the job.