After student protest, NLSIU Bengaluru’s vice-chancellor promises to revisit room allocation

Bengaluru: Following the student protests at National Law School of India University (NLSIU) on the lack of hostel facilities and gender discrimination in room allocation, vice-chancellor Sudhir Krishnaswamy sent out a detailed email Friday to the student community, assuring them of changes.

Students had staged a protest Tuesday night over the lack of water and electricity in hostels, and the mismatch in facilities provided in the boys’ and girls’ hostels. The students called out the room allocation process as “blatant misogyny at its finest” and said women were being “treated like cattle” on campus.

In his response, the VC assured students that the administration would revisit allocations for 2026-27 and look at residences outside the campus. “As you have raised concerns about disproportionate gender impact, we will revisit allocations for the year 2026-27. On May 13, we paused the process of hostel room allocation. We will explore reassigning hostels and securing new student residences outside the campus,” he said in the mail.

According to the students, while girls have been given three-tier bunk beds and are “packed like sardines” in hostels, the boys have received regular cots. “Identification of rooms for the addition of bunk beds in different hostel blocks was done primarily on the basis of room size and dimensions of existing rooms. This was driven by the goal of efficient allocation of existing resources, not the gender of hostel occupants,” the VC explained.

He highlighted that the hostel facilities were incrementally increased to keep pace with the expansion of student intake. NLSIU now has the capacity to accommodate 1,693 students, as against 530 in 2020.

Krishnaswamy also said “extraordinary efforts” were taken to ensure 24x7 water supply in all parts of the campus in the past two days, including raising the number of round-the-clock maintenance staff, increasing the frequency of inspection of storage and drinking water, backup measures in case of power outage, and replenishing water tanks.

He said safety has been enhanced with CCTV coverage, regular patrolling, barbed wire fencing, and the removal of a bus stop seating area used by unidentified individuals. The administration has promised further infrastructural, administrative, and vendor changes to deliver better service. The VC has promised to address all issues by May 20.

At the open house with the VC Wednesday, students had raised 18 specific issues. While Krishnaswamy said that he would respond in seven days' time, the students demanded a reply within 24 hours. “Many of the issues were not addressed in the email. Hence, we are drafting specific demands,” said a student.