Navya Kalesan | 17th August 2025
Policies often speak in the language of dignity. They promise equality, accessibility, and inclusion. They sound reassuring, even progressive. But when those words fail to travel from paper to practice, they turn hollow.
The University of Mumbai’s Youth Policy of 2013 is a perfect example of this disconnect. It commits to “adequate and hygienic sanitation facilities,” “universal design standards for accessibility,” and even “emergency maintenance within 24 hours.” These are not minor details — they are the basics of student welfare.
Yet, walking through the university’s Health Centre building — a place that should symbolize care — I was struck by how far removed the reality is from the rhetoric.
The Walkthrough That Told a Story
The ground floor washrooms of Health Center Building, both male and female, claim to be disability-friendly. But “friendly” is too generous a word. At best, they are functional. At worst, they reflect the bare minimum approach to maintenance — taps that leak, dispensers that don’t work, and an unmistakable sense of neglect.
Climb to the first floor of Health Center building, and the illusion crumbles further. The washroom here isn’t merely dirty. It is abandoned. A muddy floor, stale air, and a pigeon nesting above told me everything I needed to know. The space has been forgotten.
On the second floor of Health Center, the situation isn’t much better. The Journalism and Communication department hosts two co-ed washrooms and one designated for women and those with disabilities. But “designated” is not the same as “accessible.” The label on the door is little more than lip service when the infrastructure inside doesn’t serve the students it claims to.
Even the most symbolic commitment to women’s dignity — a sanitary pad dispenser — has been reduced to a rusted, broken box. It stands there as a reminder of promises made and forgotten.
The Policy Is Not the Problem
This is not a case of missing guidelines. The Youth Policy spells everything out: daily cleaning, universal accessibility, menstrual hygiene infrastructure, 24-hour maintenance turnarounds. The university knows what students deserve.
The problem is the refusal — or inability — to bridge the gap between what is written and what is delivered.
A History of Neglect
The press and mainstream media have long documented these failures. The Free Press Journal reported in February this year that the Health Centre had “probably the worst maintained washroom” in Kalina campus. Students described them as “smelly and dirty.”
Other departments fare no better. In Sociology Department, a so-called disabled-access washroom is so poorly designed that a wheelchair cannot even enter. The lift doesn’t work either, rendering the label meaningless. In August, Free Press Journal reported on the Pali Department’s “clogged, stinking” facilities and lack of drinking water.
This is not one building’s story. It is a pattern of neglect across campus.
Why This Matters?
Some may dismiss this as a “washroom problem.” But that is too narrow a lens. This is about access, health, and dignity.
For women students, it means carrying sanitary pads and water bottles, anticipating institutional failure.
For students with disabilities, it means physical strain and sometimes outright exclusion from basic facilities.
For all students, it means time lost, discomfort endured, and dignity compromised.
A university’s classrooms may foster intellectual growth, but its washrooms tell another story — of whether it respects its students enough to meet their most basic needs.
Excuses, Delays, and the Weight of Silence
The administration has a habit of insisting it has “not received complaints.” Students tell a different story: complaints have been made, repeatedly, but go ignored until media coverage forces action.
The 24-hour maintenance turnaround promised in policy? In practice, repairs stretch into weeks, months, or are abandoned altogether.
This is not incompetence alone. It is indifference.
A Call for Accountability
The University of Mumbai does not need new policies, new committees, or new promises. It already has a clear framework for sanitation and student welfare. What it needs is the will to act.
That means:
- Immediate audits of all sanitation facilities across campuses.
- Public timelines for repairing and maintaining washrooms, accessible online for students to track.
- Accountability mechanisms where repeated failures by contractors or staff have real consequences.
- Student representation in monitoring committees to ensure that complaints don’t vanish into silence.
Until these steps are taken, the university will continue to betray its own students. Every broken dispenser, every “disabled-friendly” washroom that cannot be used, every odour-filled hallway is a reminder that the institution is failing at the most basic level of care.
Mumbai University prides itself on being one of India’s premier institutions. But true prestige is not built in convocation halls or senate chambers — it is measured in whether a student can step into a washroom and find dignity, safety, and inclusion waiting for them.
It is time the university stopped hiding behind policies and press releases and faced up to its responsibility. Students have waited long enough.
Navya Kalesan is a media researcher whose work focuses on student welfare, policy gaps, and campus experiences in higher education. She writes critically on how institutional promises often diverge from everyday realities.
