New Delhi: The Delhi University elections this year have brought SFI, AISA, ABVP, and NSUI together. Beyond Jai Shri Ram, Karl Marx, Che Guevara, and Ambedkar, there is a new ideology they share. It’s called infrastructure.
“It took six years to build the Burj Khalifa, but Hindu College’s hostel has been under construction for as many years now,” declared Abhishek Kumar, a probable candidate from the Left-wing All India Students’ Association (AISA) for the Delhi University Students’ Union election on 18 September. He was speaking at a rain-soaked mahapanchayat of AISA and the Students’ Federation of India (SFI) outside the Arts Faculty, where hundreds of students had gathered to demand safer campuses and hostels for all, among other issues.
The delay at Hindu College is just a crack that is widening. From Ramjas College to Shyama Prasad Mukherjee College, ceilings have fallen, fans have crashed, and walls have collapsed. Teachers and students have flagged concerns for years. But with the Four Year Undergraduate Programme (FYUP) keeping students on campus for an extra year without new classrooms, staff, or hostels, the strain is not so easily shrugged off.
Beyond fiery ideological slogans, campaign posters call for “hostel for all,” “safe campus for all,” “Porta cabin free university,” “better canteens,” “International-standard sports facilities,” and “affordable and accessible transportation.”
All the students’ organisations are showing off their bona fides. While ABVP is flaunting the University Special Buses flagged off by its DUSU office-bearers and Chief Minister Rekha Gupta—with posters declaring “Promises Made, Promises Kept”— SFI is posting before-and-after shots of a Zakir Husain College toilet on Instagram to “lal salaams” in the comments. NSUI’s “DU ki Wishlist” and “Vision for DU” both put better infrastructure and transport at the top of the list.
The university, teachers say, is being stretched far beyond what its creaking facilities can bear. Although infrastructure projects worth Rs 2,000 crore are underway in DU, Vice-Chancellor Yogesh Singh acknowledged to the media in June that many colleges are over a century old and much of the facilities are outdated.
“Delhi University is already running on infrastructure built for 2008, when seats were expanded. Now, with the four-year programme and no added investment in classrooms or staff, the system is collapsing, slowly,” said Sudhanshu Kumar, whose term as vice-president of the Delhi University Teachers’ Association (DUTA) just ended. For the teachers’ body polls, which took place on 4 September, overcrowded classrooms and decrepit infrastructure were among the key planks.
On the streets, as student and faculty leaders promised safer campuses and better facilities, inside classrooms, precariously dangling fans and cracked ceilings were a reminder of the fragility of these promises.
By mid-morning the bylanes of North Campus are alive with campaign slogans, clashing with impatiently honking e-rickshaws, cars, and autos. A college building sports ‘Wall Of Democracy’ written in bold blue. The ground below is a carpet of discarded campaign pamphlets.
Rising above the cacophony are DU’s venerable old buildings — St. Stephen’s red-brick block from 1941, Hindu College’s E-shaped structure from 1953, Miranda House, founded in 1948. Their contours give the campus its heritage character, but for students they also mean chipped staircases, leaking roofs, and the sense of being left behind in time.
Also Read: Delhi student politics is changing. New DUSU president’s use of fear and force has many fans
Students left stranded, injured
When second-year student Wahid Sardar returned to Ramjas College from his hometown in Bengal’s North 24 Parganas on 1 August, he discovered he had no place to stay. The hostel gates were locked, and a flimsy A4 notice was taped outside.
“It is hereby informed that the Hostel building is under the Structural Stability Test at Ramjas College,” the notice stated, “hence the College will not do any admissions in the Hostel for 2025-2026 till further orders.”
The boys’ hostel, first built in 1954, had long shown signs of decay, with fractures in the ceilings and structural damage in one wing. But the abrupt shutdown for repairs left Wahid, 19, stranded despite having secured the room based on a merit list.
“We slept on the streets. All the PGs were occupied,” he said. “I finally managed to get a sharing flat for Rs 12,000.”
When students from small towns come to a city like Delhi, we have dreams, aspirations, and hope for affordable housing and education. It looks like we will keep asking when it will get better until we graduate
-Subhash Arya, Hindu College student from Aurangabad
Hostel residents staged protests alongside student groups like AISA, SFI and ABVP, demanding clarity from the administration. Meanwhile, PGs around North Campus quietly raised rents. Accommodation that went for Rs 8,000 earlier now costs Rs 12,000-13,000.
“The sudden closure meant weeks without [subsidised] food and shelter. They could have informed us,” Wahid said. “It’s not just about cracked walls and whitewashing.”
For Sonu Kumar Prasad, a 23-year-old MA Hindi student at Kirori Mal College, Delhi University was supposed to be a step up from Chapra, Bihar.
“There is no education culture in my town. I thought Delhi would provide better infrastructure and amenities,” he said. But what greeted him were broken toilets, leaking taps, peeling walls, and classrooms where plaster falls like dust.
The 1954 building also gave him a major scare last month. On one afternoon after class, Sonu was sitting in the old building corridor with his friends and 20-25 other students. Suddenly, a loud crack split the quiet. A concrete canopy above the corridor broke off and crashed to the ground. Dust and debris scattered across the floor, as the students ran out in panic.
“It fell suddenly, before we could realise it. Nobody was under it. We all ran away, fearing what if something falls again?” Sonu recounted.
Many classrooms are also in perilous condition.
At Kalindi College in April, a ceiling fan collapsed on an assistant professor during class, triggering online outrage over crumbling infrastructure. A video taken afterwards showed the dented fan on the floor while the teacher slouched on a wooden chair, with blood trickling down her head.
“No serious injury was reported and all repair work was completed,” Kalindi College principal Meena Charanda told ThePrint. “The fan was left loose after repair work, but our teams have rechecked all electrical equipment.”
Such incidents are not uncommon. Plaster fell from the ceiling at Shyama Prasad Mukherji College in March, with student leaders from ABVP and NSUI taking up the issue with the college administration; a similar incident also took place in the elite SRCC’s canteen. In September 2023, part of the ceiling in St Stephen’s auditorium collapsed during a music event, injuring a first-year student. In June that year, a ceiling fan fell and injured a student during an exam at Hansraj College, leading to protests.
Overcrowding adds to the strain. With too few seats, students are often forced to stand through lectures or listen from the corridor.
“When it comes to the safety of students, officials turn a blind eye and don’t give answers,” said outgoing DUSU president Ronak Khatri in a social media video on such incidents, captioned, “the issue of collapsing infrastructure.”
A budget issue?
Since 1967, the Delhi University Teachers’ Association has been the main body fighting for teachers’ rights and better working conditions. It has repeatedly raised concerns about how shrinking funds and policy shifts are eroding both quality of education and infrastructure.
Ahead of the election earlier this month, a bulletin board inside DUTA’s office was filled with old posters, pamphlets, and notices. Most were for dharnas, strikes, and marches over ad-hoc appointments, pensions, faculty workload, infrastructure, and HEFA loans. Currently, overcrowding is a core complaint.
“The classrooms are fully packed, from 8 am to 8 pm,” said Sudhanshu Kumar, who teaches Hindi at Swami Shraddhanand College and whose term as DUTA vice-president just ended.
Colleges are still running on the one-time infrastructure grant of Rs 280 crore given in 2008-09, when seats were expanded by 25 per cent under the EWS quota, according to him.
No new teaching or non-teaching posts were sanctioned then, he pointed out, and the same is true now under FYUP.
The budget for maintenance has also dried up.
“There are no funds for old buildings,” Kumar said, alleging that principals are often told to dip into the student fund—meant for seminars, cultural activities, and sports—if they want to do repairs.
The fund mobilisation has not worked. Managerial gaps remain, and the infrastructure hasn’t kept pace with the two-fold student increase after the four-year programme
-Sudhanshu Kumar, former DUTA vice president
Yet while existing facilities are neglected, new departments and blocks are still coming up. These are financed not through grants but loans taken by colleges from the Higher Education Financial Agency (HEFA) — a joint venture between the Ministry of Education and Canara Bank to finance capital projects in higher education. In 2023, HEFA approved a Rs 930 crore for various development projects in DU.
“It’s the reason for fee hikes every year,” Kumar claimed.
HEFA data shows it has funded 32 institutions under the central university category. The sanctioned amount was Rs 6,773.58 crore, while the disbursed amount is Rs 3,353.74 crore.
A Delhi University political science faculty member, with a decade of experience, claimed that the Centre has pushed institutions towards HEFA loans in the past five to six years, requiring colleges to generate up to 30 per cent of their own resources.
“The fund mobilisation has not worked. Managerial gaps remain, and the infrastructure hasn’t kept pace with the two-fold student increase after the four-year programme,” he said.
He contrasted this with the mushrooming of private universities in tier-2 and tier-3 cities, some with gleaming new campuses, while public universities are left to manage on their own.
But the Ministry of Education insists funding has only increased.
In a Lok Sabha reply in February 2025, Minister of State for Education Sukanta Majumdar said UGC grants to Delhi University have risen over the past five years, from Rs 607.8 crore in 2019-20 to Rs 955.29 crore in 2023-24. Allocations, he said, are based on requirements and utilisation. The ministry rejected claims that a loan-based expenditure model is replacing grants.
A former vice-chancellor, speaking on condition of anonymity, said lapses also occur because funds flow from the UGC to individual college governing bodies.
“There are set rules, but when the money lapses, the infrastructure collapses,” he said. In his time, he recalled, colleges were more proactive: new buildings went up, old ones were repaired, and a central monitoring system kept track.
Meanwhile, students like Sonu still skirt corridors for fear of plaster tumbling on their heads.
Plans and protests
In July 2025, DUTA, backed by nearly 2,000 faculty members, petitioned the President of India against rolling out the fourth year of FYUP under the National Education Policy 2020. At a press conference, then DUTA president AK Bhagi warned that without more faculty, classrooms, labs, and funds, the programme would endanger students. Overcrowded rooms and broken infrastructure were again at the heart of teachers’ objections.
The university’s own centenary document, the Strategic Plan 2024-2047, admits to various gaps, including in infrastructure augmentation and student-teacher ratio.
Faculty have been pressing these points for years. In May 2025, the Indian National Teachers Congress demanded an urgent infrastructure audit, citing safety hazards from ceiling collapses to falling fans. They asked for a minimum of Rs 30 crore per college for repairs. Even back in 2019, DUTA had written to the then VC, flagging overcrowded classrooms and labs and pleading for immediate infrastructure grants.
Implorations have come from student leaders as well.
“Investing in infrastructure will not only benefit current students but also attract prospective students to our esteemed institution,” DUSU joint secretary Lokesh Choudhury wrote to the VC in February this year.
Sometimes, budget is a problem, but responsibility has to be taken by colleges, and the students as well. Lifts break down, walls get defaced
-Rajni Abbi, DU South Campus director
The senior political science faculty member linked the crisis to shifting state priorities.
“Legacy institutions like DU, JNU, JMI, AMU, BHU, AIIMS, HCU had stronger state investment. Today they’re crumbling,” he said. Exams, he noted, have been held inside libraries, storerooms, even under tents.
He also questioned the Institution of Eminence title given to DU by the government in 2019, entitling it to additional financial assistance of Rs 1,000 crore over the next five years.
“Every college now has extra students, but no extra infrastructure or maintained classrooms,” he said. “Where did the Rs 1,000 crore given under the Institution of Eminence go?” he asked.
Also Read: Patna University Students Union is now run by women. ABVP prez calls it arts students’ lab
A work in progress
Behind the unflattering headlines, DU officials insist regular inspections are being carried out and upgrades are in progress.
Before every vacation, the proctor’s office dispatches engineers, committee members, and staff to check hostels, libraries, classrooms, and toilets, said Rajni Abbi, proctor until last month and now director of DU’s South Campus.
As proctor, Abbi said she wrote to all DU principals, HoDs, hostel provosts and librarians in June, directing them to check rooms, toilets, roofs, walls, electrical fittings, lifts, ramps for disabled students, and drinking water supply. She also asked colleges to carry out whitewashing, if needed.
“We checked everything — the roofs, toilets, lifts, fire extinguishers. Our goal was that students should return to a safe, healthy environment,” she said. The survey turned up leaking roofs and stinking toilets at Laxmi Bai and Kalindi Colleges. At the Faculty of Law, the engineers found that expensive Jaguar bathroom fittings had been stolen.
“Sometimes, budget is a problem, but responsibility has to be taken by colleges, and the students as well. Lifts break down, walls get defaced,” Abbi said. She added that DU has cracked down on wall defacement, even occasionally filing FIRs.
During his June address to the media, VC Singh claimed that major upgrades were in the offing for DU.
“To meet the 21st century needs, we have been working on building new infrastructure, which is an essential need. The infrastructure upgrades include smart classrooms, WiFi, solar power and CCTV,” he said.
Expansion plans are also in motion to accommodate more students. The Ministry of Education told Parliament that DU received 2,46,194 undergraduate applications in 2024, out of which only 70,422 students were admitted. New campuses are planned in Dwarka and Surajmal Vihar, along with Veer Savarkar College in Najafgarh, and the administration expects two campuses and two colleges to be ready within 18 months.
“Most of the time usually goes in the approval and planning process, especially in Delhi, where many approvals are needed, and they are time taking, but now, most of the approvals are processed,” VC Singh said.
Over the past two years, DU has recruited nearly 5,000 faculty and non-teaching staff, and introduced engineering programmes and new MA courses in Chinese and Korean Studies.
Public pressure is playing a part now as well.
Dean of Colleges Balram Pani called the recent complaints “routine issues of roof damage, leakage and seepage,” but admitted that the administration had stepped up suo motu action due to outcry over the accidents.
“We used to do audits earlier, but now suddenly videos are going viral,” he said, adding that work is underway in hostels like Ramjas and Hansraj College. Pani said the goal is to reopen the hostels next year with better infrastructure.
At the AISA rally, 19-year-old Subhash Arya said the main campaign planks sounded much like what he heard back home in Aurangabad, Bihar, where men gathered under a tree to debate non-functional handpumps, broken roads and patchy electricity.
Now, as a student at Hindu College, the problems listed are dripping ceilings, shut hostels and broken toilets.
“When students from small towns come to a city like Delhi, we have dreams, aspirations, and hope for affordable housing and education,” he said. “It looks like we will keep asking when it will get better until we graduate.”
(Edited by Asavari Singh)