HYDERABAD, Feb 10: A project of the University of Sindh envisages providing Internet facility in every room of the hostel and the project will hopefully get approval during current month, it was stated at a meeting on Saturday.

The meeting attended by registrar, hostel provost, in-charge of transport, director of finance, director of admissions and students’ welfare officer, discussed the charter of demands presented by students and took decisions to address them.

On the students’ demand for Internet in each room the provost said that the hostel management had learnt after a survey that Rs1.7 million was required to meet the demand. The university had already increased Internet bandwidth from 4Mbps to 16Mbps, he said.

The director of admissions said that the university increased for the first time in 20 years admission fee by Rs410 while keeping all the other fees including transport, examination and hostel constant.

The director of finance said that the university had paid Rs1.7 million on account of free-ship and bursary and granted Rs6.2 million to the students of flood and rain-affected areas during 2007 session. During 2008 session, the university had allocated Rs2.2 million on account of free-ship and bursary to meritorious-cum-poor students, he said.

About the students’ demand for showing them answer copies, the meeting said that the semester rules allowed any student to check his answer copy.

The in-charge of transport said that the university at present was plying 82 private buses in addition to its own fleet of 46 buses from different routes to facilitate students. Besides, the university was purchasing a fleet of 10 new Hino buses each year to meet the shortage of buses, he added.

The meeting did not agree with the students’ demand for holding special supplementary examination in light of the policy of Higher Education Commission but agreed to allow failure students to appear in semester examination along with fresh and improver candidates.

The registrar, who presided over the meeting, said that the HEC had granted the university Rs40 million as compensation for losses to university property during violence post-Dec 27 tragedy.

The in-charge of transport said that the university provided transport to students to attend cultural shows on the occasions of Urs at Bhitshah and Sehwan Sharif and go on study tours and all-Pakistan tour every year.

The Bureau of STAGS organised co-curricular activities. It would organise a mega function in the near future.

The meeting discussed the quality of food in boys’ hostels and the provost informed that at present hostel canteens had been charging rates which had been fixed in 2003.