Symbiosis Institute of Media and Communications, Pune (SIMC) – the media and communications institute has actually applied brakes on communications in the campus. No Internet access between 2.00-5.00 am and 8.00am-5.00 pm in the hostel and no checking social networking sites before 8.00pm. Shocked with this move, students are livid but claim that all their efforts to stop this blockade have proved fruitless so far.

According to officials at SIMC, the reasoning behind is to make sure that students focus more on academic work and for the school to save on bandwidth from frivolous entertainment downloads. Apparently, because of heavy traffic at night, the management used to receive complaints from staff and students about difficulty in downloading course work.Officials also add that SIMC has decreased its intake from 240 to 120 but not increased its fees – this has decreased the institute’s revenues and saving of bandwidth is a way to keep the balance.

SIMC director Chandan Chatterjee admitted that Internet has been blocked for some hours in his schools and it is done keeping the students in mind. “We have had cases where students have come into the classroom tired and exhausted after keeping up all night. This is one way that we ensure they get a good night’s sleep.” When asked how students were expected to work on assignment and presentations, Chatterjee said that the IP team of the college would come in handy there.

“We are getting better in our rankings. We are trying to make lot of improvements this year. This is one of them to improve our academics and research. We want to balance practical training as well as academics this year”, the director added. Chatterjee also says that parents of wards studying in IIM A and XLRI have also told him that their students are addicted to the Internet. “We want our students to take proper rest and use the Internet in proportion. Even IIT, Delhi has this kind of restrictions to focus more on academics,” Chatterjee added.

However when PaGaLGuY cross-checked with IIT Delhi, a student there said there there was no restriction of internet usage at night. ‘”We have limited downloading to 500 MB/week and 2GB/month. I guess 500 MB is enough for most of us. Management was going to limit Internet access during night hours but it has not been done yet. I cannot imagine my day without Internet for even half an hour.We use Internet especially for academics and I personally believe limiting Internet access during night hours will not improve academic performance.”

And when asked,how he would stop students from downloading via their phones, the director said he could not do anything about it. “I cannot stop them from using the net on their phones. I am only trying to make the students perform well in academics and make the most of the hard earned money their parents have invested in their b-school education.”