JNU Barak Hostel: Only 12% North East students despite 75:25 quota
In 2014, a brutal racial attack on a student from Arunachal Pradesh in Delhi sparked many protests and much reflection on the problems faced by people from the northeastern region living and studying in the rest of India. A panel formed to study their concerns and suggest solutions and measures highlighted the need for dedicated accommodation for them. Citing this as a positive feature, it talked about how Jawaharlal Nehru University is planning a hostel for students from the North East.
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The new hostel actually came into existence, more than 10 years later, with great delay. However, peeling plaster and cracks on the walls of the facility built at a cost of over ₹28 crore are just some of the broken promises. The most glaring of these is that, according to the student president of the hostel, Hrishikesh Talukdar, only 12% of the students from the northeastern states live in the Barak hostel today.
Taniam and committee
Nido Taniam was an 18-year-old first-year student from Arunachal Pradesh studying in a college in Delhi who died after a brutal racial attack in the state capital.
He was in Lajpat Nagar on January 29, 2014 when he stopped at a local shop to ask for directions. Some men reportedly made comments about his hair and hurled racial slurs at him. A confrontation ensued and Taniam was allegedly attacked by a group of men who beat him with sticks. He was taken to the All India Institute of Medical Sciences in Delhi, where he died the next day. According to the post-mortem report submitted by the Delhi Police, Taniam suffered nine internal and external injuries, including head, lung and facial injuries, which caused his death.
Taniam’s death and the protests that followed brought new attention to the discrimination, hostility and insecurity experienced by people from the North East outside the region.
Following this, the Ministry of Home Affairs (MHA) set up the Bezbaruah Committee in February 2014, headed by MP Bezbaruah, then a member of the North-Eastern Council (NEC), a statutory advisory body established under the North-Eastern Council Act, 1971. The committee was tasked with looking into the concerns of North-Eastern people living in different parts of the country.
Among the concerns noted by the committee was the need for safe and adequate accommodation. In its report, the committee referred to the proposal for a 500-room facility at JNU. She stated that the university authorities are ready to implement the project and recommended that it be approved immediately.
However, it took several years for this recommendation to take physical form. The Department of Development of North Eastern Region (DoNER) has agreed to fund the project following the signing of an MoU between JNU and NEC. Aam Aadmi Party was in power at that time. The deal provided ₹28.30 crore for the project, with 75% of the hostel seats reserved for students from the North-East region and the remaining 25% for students from other parts of the country.
In July 2017, Dr. Jitendra Singh, then Minister of State for Development of the North Eastern Region (Independent Body), laid the foundation stone for what eventually became the Barak Hostel on the JNU campus.
A press release issued at the time stated that NEC is financing 100% of the construction at a cost of ₹28.30 crore. The hostel was to be completed within three years and would accommodate 400 students – 200 boys and 200 girls. Of these, 320 seats were to be available to students from the North East and 80 to students from the rest of the country.
The dormitory was finally completed in 2024, but remained unoccupied for another year as the university cited a lack of staff. It was then virtually inaugurated by Union Home Minister Amit Shah on 7 April 2025. On the same day, the present Vice-Chancellor of JNU Santishree D. Pandit conducted a ribbon-cutting ceremony to formally open the hostel.
The main promise was not kept
Barak Hostel was conceived as more than a building providing beds and rooms. It was conceived as a dedicated space for students from a region whose experiences of discrimination and exclusion prompted the government to promise a safer and more inclusive university environment. Almost a decade after the foundation stone was laid, however, the questions surrounding the Barak Hostel go beyond the promise of inclusion.
On the very day of the inauguration ceremony of the 2025 Vice Chancellor, the North East Students Forum (NESF) staged a silent protest in front of Barak Hostel. During the protest, JNU Vice-Chancellor Santishree D. Pandit was heard on video saying that there would be no reservation in the hostel for students from the Northeast. A video made by protesting students is on YouTube.
Today, as of August 2026, there are 420 students living in the hostel, but only 53 of them are from the Northeast, barely 12%, Mr. Talukdar said. The original mandate was 75% reservation.
Students from the NESF of JNU have repeatedly raised the issue of the university management. They approached the dean and vice-chancellor, filed Right to Information (RTI) applications and staged protests to clarify the original mandate of the hostel and the government. However, according to them, the problem remains unresolved.
More problems
And while the dispute over who the hostel was built for continues, another question has arisen: the infrastructure itself. Almost ten years after the foundation stone was laid and barely two years after the construction was completed, Barak Hostel is already showing visible signs of decay.
Moss appeared on its walls; balconies and washrooms face waterlogging; toilet seats are broken; door broken; Wi-Fi is insufficient; and the hostel has no mess, students say.
The Memorandum of Understanding (MoU), accessed by The Hindu, stated that JNU would outsource work to public works agencies, including the Delhi State Public Works Division, for civil and electrical works. The State Public Works Division is a key operational unit of the State Public Works Department (PWD) which is responsible for the planning, design, construction and local maintenance of public infrastructure.
Paint peeling on the walls at Barak Hostel | Photo credit: SPECIAL ARRANGEMENT
Hrishikesh Talukdar, who is also the NESF representative in the state of Assam, filed an RTI seeking information that the mess was not commissioned. In its reply dated 30 July 2026, the JNU administration said it had first approached the Ministry of Education (MOE) on 24 February 2025 for a financial assistance of ₹2.15 crore as annual recurring expenditure along with a one-time grant of ₹50 crore to operationalize the mess. The proposal included expenses for cooks, helpers, orderlies, security guards and other personnel needed to operate the dormitory and dining hall.
In an RTI reply, JNU said the MoE responded on March 19, 2025 and subsequently forwarded the university’s proposal to the University Grants Commission (UGC) for examination and appropriate action. However, the RTI reply does not clarify whether any funds were ultimately sanctioned or released. JNU also said that no specific deadline was set for the opening of the mess and that there was no meeting exclusively between JNU and MoE on the issue.
The problem of funding also concerns the Wi-Fi equipment in the hostel. On 10 June 2026, JNU’s Dean of Students, Professor Manuradha Chaudhary, wrote to DoNER requesting a one-time grant of ₹2.69 crore for the installation and commissioning of Wi-Fi at Barak Hostel. The university said its Communication and Information Services (CIS) had prepared an infrastructure estimate, but the equipment could not be installed due to lack of funds.
JNU also cited a joint visit to the hostel on March 10, 2026, during which the Monitoring Committee, including officials from MHA and DoNER, recommended that DoNER consider supporting WiFi installation. However, according to Barak Hostel Committee’s representation to the Vice-Chancellor on August 3, DoNER subsequently rejected the request for funding.
An electrical distribution board with an open cover revealing internal circuit breakers and hazardous wiring at Barak Hostel, JNU. | Photo credit: SPECIAL ARRANGEMENT
The NESF then contested the rejection, pointing out that the minutes of the JNU meeting of 11 March 2026 noted that DoNER should be approached to get funding for both the mess and the WiFi. The students have now asked the university for clarification on both the funding proposals: whether the UGC approved or released funds for the mess, what components were approved and, if funded, why the mess remains idle; and why DoNER rejected the WiFi proposal despite an earlier recommendation to consider funding it.
In its last representation to MHA, NESF raised concerns about the 75:25 hostel allocation ratio. The letter mentioned that rooms were allocated to non-Northeastern students and in some cases even non-students, while legitimate requests from Northeastern students seeking accommodation were denied. In the same letter, NESF also pointed out the dysfunctional mess of the hostel, absence of WiFi connectivity, inadequate sanitation and dustbins, lack of recreational and sports facilities, water leaks and other maintenance and structural issues – He urged the monitoring committee to intervene with the JNU administration.
The Hindu contacted the JNU administration, student help desk and the dean of students through publicly available email addresses and phone numbers, seeking the university’s response to the concerns raised by the Barak Hostel lodgers. Queries were related to non-functioning dining facility and status of funds sought for it, availability of Wi-Fi and status of funds sought from DoNER, hostel allotment concerns and complaints related to hostel infrastructure. At the time of writing, the university did not respond to inquiries. The article will be updated if and when JNU responds.