SRINAGAR (UTTARAKHAND): Shubham Tomar, 22, can still recall the feel of the cold, hard floor of his house in Chakrata in Dehradun district where he had spent endless hours studying for the JEE Mains exam in 2015. When he gained admission to Srinagar, Pauri Garhwal branch of the National Institute of Technology (NIT), one of the country's premier technology institutes, he believed his days of struggle were over and his future secure.Four years on, Shubham, now in his fourth-year of BTech, is foremost among the over 900 NIT students sitting on an indefinite strike since October 4 in support of their demand for a permanent campus. The prestigious engineering institute, considered second only to the Indian Institutes of Technology (IITs), is running on "borrowed" space, on the terrace of a government polytechnic college with a tin roof in place of a concrete one.During the monsoon , the tin roof of classrooms leaks. Several of the hostel rooms on the ground floor have to be vacated because of leaks and seepage. Instead of hostels, many students have been housed in hotels located far away from the campus.The NIT was set up in 2010 and the campus was to be established at Sumari, 15 km from the present location. The land, however, was declared unfit for development and construction. Makeshift arrangements were made on the first floor of the polytechnic to hold classes. Almost eight years have passed, but the college is still waiting for its own campus.The recent protest was prompted after two students of the college were hit, and one of them severely injured, by a car while crossing the road to go the lab, 200 metres from the campus, which is on the busy National Highway 58. On Tuesday, many NITs across the country held candle-lit prayers for the student who is battling for her life at AIIMS Rishikesh.The protesting students in Srinagar said that several of them had narrowly escaped road accidents in the past and the situation worsens during the Char Dham pilgrimage when there is a rush of vehicles on the road."It is high time we got a campus of our own. This has put not just our studies but also our lives at peril," said student Krunal Suryawanshi.Several students were bitterly disappointed when they arrived at the campus, whose beautiful location overlooking the lush Garhwal hills belies the squalor in its buildings. While third- and fourth-year students of the institute are housed in hotels in the town and travel several kilometres to attend classes every day, the juniors, over 400 of them, are living in cramped conditions in five tiny hostels, with six students forced to live in a 10ft by 8ft room. For every 50 students, there is a single toilet.Students also said that they were staring at a bleak future as companies often shied away from holding placement tests in the campus as it was in a remote location. The students are demanding that the land for the campus be allotted somewhere in the plains.The NIT authorities said that they have the funds for a state-of-the-art campus but no land has been allotted to them by the state government. R B Patel, director in-charge, NIT Srinagar told TOI, "We were allotted land last year after students had protested, but it turned out to be on an earthquake prone zone."

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