chennai the tubelight in s mouriyas room at the government college students hostel in nandanam stopped working ten days back nothing has been done about it but that is the least of his worries we have been complaining to the warden about the poor quality of food water and the unclean premises but nothing has been done about it says the 27yearold from ramanathapurammouriya a law student at the dr ambedkar law college in parrys is among the many students who had moved to chennai from villages across tamil nadu to find themselves in the pitiful conditions of the government adidravidar hostels here he has been sharing a 12ft x 14ft room with 15 others for the last three yearsi am the first person from my family to study both my parents are manual labourers and they earn rs 50 a day breaking rocks in a village in ramanathapuram he says we used to eat just one meal a day at home while i was growing up here i end up skipping meals because they use rotten vegetables and lowquality rice to prepare food he addseven when there is light mouriya heads to the terrace at night to study it is not possible to study in the room as there is always someone who wants to listen to music or talk loudly i prefer the terrace where there is a single light bulb he says mouriya says many students prefer to come to chennai as they can meet a variety of people and expand their knowledgebase since it is difficult to manage with yearly scholarship of rs 4000 mouriya like many students takes up parttime jobs as sales assistants to earn an extra buck and these hostels remain overcrowded mouriyas hostel meant for undergraduates accommodates around 20 phd mphil and postgraduate students students here work hard to come up in life but there is little to support them there is no television newspapers or library for us to improve our knowledge i make sure i spend a lot of time with my professors to learn more he saysbut good food clean drinking water and living conditions remain his primary requirements the government lavish a lot of money on those in iits but i do not know if they even spend all the rs 1840 allotted to every hostel student per day he says