Breaking a Myth - Air-conditioning of Campus costs a fortune

It is ‘normally assumed’ that making an entire college building air-conditioned would burden the students with unreasonable increase in fees, but I am afraid – this is only a myth created by those who love to exploit this ‘common sense’ by offering such a justification for the huge fees that they charge from the students. As it might be shocking to know that making all the classrooms & Labs of a college air-conditioned would actually cost less than Rs. 500 per students annually!

I was driven to write this piece when I came two know about the recent turmoil that Hindu College observed when they decided to charge a hefty fees for their newly constructed Girls’ Hostel – many steps more than what Boys are being charged. The justification offered in support of this differential fee structure was that the new structure was proposed to be air-conditioned.

Surprisingly, generally speaking, it is a commonly established and accepted fact that an educational institution that has air-conditioned class rooms can sustain its infrastructure only by charging fees in lacs. I am here to break this myth. I would pick up the case of my college that has around 5000 fees-paying students, around 50 class rooms and approximately 20 labs. To start with, I can assure you that if I dump 150 air-conditioners in my college, the administration will face huge difficulty in finding a place to install all of them (given that the college already has some air-conditioners installed in the office and some computer labs). Now let me place some basic calculations here. It would be perfectly realistic to assume that purchase and installation (including cabling) will cost approximately 50 thousand per AC. Therefore the total cost of installation of these 150 ACs will be 150x50,000=75,00,000. And thus, the cost incurred per student will be a one-time contribution of 75,00,000/5000 = 1500 (Rs.). It is clear that we need only a single contribution of Rs. 1500 per student to ensure air-conditioning of the entire college building. Moreover, if our college decides to do this in a span of three years, we need a contribution of Rs. 500 per student to achieve our target in a time-bound 3-year time.

Now, another greater myth is on the running cost of these ACs. Let me try to break this myth too. On an average, our college can claim to have not more than 180-200 teaching days in a year. And discounting the winter days when ACs are not required, we may need these ACs in the class rooms only for about 150 days and that too from 9 AM to 5 PM (8 hours a day). This generous estimate makes these 150 ACs run for 150x150x8 = 1,80,000 hrs. On an average this would consume 2,70,000 units of energy costing Rs. 25 lac maximum. This, when distributed on the 5000 students would come to 25,00,000/5000 = Rs. 500 per student per annum! Given that colleges are already charging a minimum of Rs. 10 thousand per annum from the students, it is only a lack of vision that has pulled the college administration back from making the campus air-conditioned. On the contrary, colleges have often given an impression that air-conditioning the campus would cost them fortune. Myth have got built up by the incident like Hindu College that proposed to charge about Rs. 1,20,000 per student as compared to Rs. 80,000 per student primarily for air-conditioning. A whooping difference of Rs. 40,000 per students annually is not only ethically unjustified but that also help create the ‘Myth’ that I have pointed out here. When AC can be for all – it is conspiratorially being utilized with a motive to create and maintain a division between an Elitists’ and a supposedly Commoners’ institution.

Let us break this myth and encourage college administrations to think of ways to get the entire campus air-conditioned. One must never forget that air-conditioned class rooms not only can encourage attendance in the classrooms but it would also provide the students the much-required comfortable environment during their tense, hot and anxious examination days.