Bangalore University students withdrew their three-day protest on Wednesday after authorities agreed to consider their demand to ban public vehicles inside the Jnanabharathi campus.
Vice-Chancellor Dr Jayakara S M convened an emergency meeting with the representatives of the police department, BBMP, and BMTC on Wednesday where even representatives of students, teaching and non-teaching staff were present.
Varsity officials said the meeting resolved to notify the government about curbing public access to the campus. “We have decided to fix a time for the movement of public vehicles inside the campus and no vehicle will be allowed before or after that time,” said a BU official.
Officials convinced students that alternative arrangements must be made for people living in the neighbourhood who depend on the varsity road for transportation. “This will be discussed with the government and, once an alternative arrangement is made, we will ban public access to the varsity,” the official said.
The traffic police have agreed to lay over 100 barricades across the campus to contain speed of vehicles passing through the campus. “There will be speed restrictions inside the campus and for that there will be barricades at various places across the campus,” an official said.
Sensor cameras
As decided at the meeting, sensor cameras will be fixed at all entry and exit gates of the campus to monitor speeds of vehicles. The varsity will also constitute a Student Safety Committee soon.
“After consulting all the stakeholders, it was decided that we will start implementing short-term solutions by enforcing strict traffic and security measures from Thursday. The speed of the vehicles will be restricted by adding barricades and installing humps through a scientific process. However, a complete ban on vehicles into the campus is unlikely for the moment and the decision on the same has to be taken by the government,” Jayakara said.
DCP Laxman Nimbargi (West) said, “We have recommended to the university to form a security committee consisting of former police officers, home guards and a supervising officer who will review the security of the campus every day. Additional CCTV cameras will be installed to monitor unlawful activities. As a security measure, a command center has also been proposed to track the activities within the 1,100-acre campus space.”