Srinagar: The students from the constituent colleges of the Cluster University Srinagar (CUS) on Saturday staged a massive protest and accused the University administration of not participating in national level sports activities.
The protesting students said the move has disappointed the students as the varsity marred the future of students who want to participate in inter-University sports activities. “From the last three years, we have not participated in any sports activity which is really disappointing for us. We are really deprived of sports facilities by the varsity administration,” the students said who had assembled in the Srinagar press enclave to stage a protest against the Cluster University.
“Students from other Universities including Cluster University Jammu are regularly participating in all sports events but our university is lagging behind in it and do not provide us a chance to participate in sports events,” the students said.
The students said they approached the varsity administration several times but the varsity officials, according to students, have attributed the non-participation in sports events to non availability of funds and sports equipment.
“On one side the government claims to promote sports activities in educational institutions from schools to University level. But in our case, we have not participated in any sports activity for the last three years,” the protesting students said.Aghast with the varsity administration, the aggrieved students have urged the J&K Lieutenant Governor (LG) Manoj Sinha who is also the Chancellor of the J&K Universities to release the funds to Cluster University so that the students can participate in the sports events.
“According to our Vice Chancellor, Cluster University does not have any funds to hold inter University sports events. But the other universities participate in inter university competitions regularly,” reads a representation of the students.
“Our university has produced the majority of National League players who have represented J&K on numerous occasions. It concerns our future and is a component of our studies,” it reads.
The students have claimed that they did not participate in any inter university sports event. “We request that you look into this matter and provide funds to Cluster University so that we will get the opportunity to participate in national level and inter university sports events,” the student representation reads.
The Registrar CUS, Prof Khurshid Ahmad Mir said there was no paucity of funds but the University participates in the sports events as per the sports calendar issued by the Association of Indian Universities (AIU).
“The students are in constituent colleges of the Cluster University and the colleges have to participate in the sports events as per the AIU sports calendar which will be communicated to Cluster University not the colleges,” he said. The Registrar said the Vice Chancellor has already conveyed the same to the students and a meeting with the Principals of the constituent colleges was convened as well.
“Recently, Cluster University Jammu participated in a sports event held in Punjab. We have written to Cluster University Jammu so that we can adopt the same procedure,” he said.