Examine the responsibility of public universities in providing affordable student housing, and the risks arising from its absence.

Public universities are not merely instructional bodies; affordable residence is integral to their equity mandate. With higher-education enrolment rising to 4.50 crore in 2023-24, up 31.5% since 2014-15 [1], hostel capacity has lagged far behind, pushing students into unregulated private accommodation.

Why housing is a university responsibility

• Equity mandate: access for first-generation, rural, SC/ST and women students depends on subsidised hostels; NEP 2020 explicitly provides for expanding hostel facilities as needed [2].
• Duty of care: an institution admitting students from across the country assumes an implicit obligation of safe residence, reinforced by the Article 21 right to life and shelter.
• Public-funding rationale: universities receive UGC and central infrastructure grants, making residential capacity a legitimate public charge rather than a private-market function.
• Abdication in practice: Delhi University, which admits over 70,000 students annually with nearly half needing accommodation, cites land scarcity to justify minimal hostel provision — the duty is disowned, not discharged.

Risks arising from its absence

• Safety hazard: demand is met by residential buildings illegally converted into multi-storey PGs. The Satya Niketan collapse (September 2026) near DU's South Campus killed seven. Delhi's vulnerability is chronic — 12 building collapses in 2013 and 10 by mid-2014 [3].
• Regulatory vacuum: though Delhi's Building Bye-Laws were unified and simplified, with small plots exempted from sanction [4], enforcement against unauthorised conversion and fire-norm violation remains weak.
• Reactive governance: the NHRC's suo motu cognizance of the Jhalawar school collapse, where residents' warnings about a dilapidated building went unheeded [5], shows action follows fatalities.
• Equity cost: rent inflation and unsafe "matchbox" rooms disproportionately burden low-income outstation students.

Student housing is therefore a safety and access question, not a real-estate one. Universities must treat hostel expansion — including land-pooling and PPP-run affordable hostels — as core infrastructure, while urban local bodies mandatorily register and audit private hostels. Aligning higher-education expansion with municipal capacity would make campuses genuinely inclusive, advancing SDG-4 and SDG-11.