Delhi University on Friday allowed students at the University Hostel for Women to stay in the hostel until June 30, 2026, without any additional charges, after an overnight protest outside the building that continued past midnight. The administration also said chairs would be restored in the reading room and coolers would be brought back to the mess.

The concession came after students said they had been pushed toward eviction during exam season, with water supply to two hostel blocks cut off for the past several days and chairs removed from the reading room while they were preparing for semester examinations and the UGC-NET. Students had already paid hostel fees for June and July, they said, but were being pressured to vacate in May.

The overnight sit-in on Friday night followed a similar protest on May 16, when the hostel provost verbally assured students that water supply and other facilities would soon be restored and that they would be allowed to stay for some more time. But students said little changed after that assurance, and the situation in the hostel worsened as the exam period continued.

According to the administration, students who stayed beyond the prescribed deadline would have to pay an additional charge of Rs 450 per day. That figure became a flashpoint in the dispute, with the Ambedkarite Students’ Association, Delhi University, accusing the administration of creating an atmosphere of forced eviction in the hostel. The group called the demand extortion and said the administration was using basic facilities as leverage.

Students at the protest said they were fighting for dignity and basic rights. Their demands included a 24-hour water supply, the return of reading room facilities, permission to stay without extra charges and a written assurance that no student would be forcibly evicted from the hostel.

The university’s decision answered the immediate question of whether the women students would be forced out in May. For now, they will stay. But the confrontation exposed a deeper breach between the hostel’s residents and the administration: students say they had to stage an overnight protest just to secure the conditions they say should have been in place all along.