How Colleges are Failing a Generation

THE SCENE is familiar across countless colleges and private university campuses in India.

- Srinath Sridharan

Students stand in front of their canteen trays, staring at their food with visible distaste. The oily, overcooked curries, stale chapattis, paneer with its microplastic content substituting for vegetables and watery dal are standard fare. Some force themselves to eat, others quietly slide their trays away, opting instead for instant noodles or aerated drinks from the lone campus kiosk. At this rate, they have to pick between a stomach infection or a heart attack before they graduate.

It would almost be amusing - if it weren't a crisis. Across India, private universities and colleges, many charging lakhs in tuition fees and an additional Rs 60,000 to Rs 1,50,000 per year in mess fees, seem to have found an innovative new model: maximising profits while serving students substandard, unhygienic, and nutritionally disastrous food. They will shy away from accountability saying that they have balanced meals and the college has outsourced food to a catering contractor.

These institutions, which claim to be shaping the nation's future, appear far more invested in their balance sheets than in the basic well-being of the young minds they are supposed to nurture. Food poisoning, diarrhoea, gastritis and severe stomach and lung infections have become routine, with nearly two-thirds of students estimated to be falling ill at least once a semester due to food contamination. This, of course, is not the concern of college administrations, who are far too busy expanding campuses, acquiring new land parcels, and adding glossy new blocks to impress prospective students. The quality of food? That remains an afterthought - outsourced to the lowest bidder with no real oversight.