Then came the low-intensity floods of 1989, which compelled the civic body and the district administration to ``requisition'' the hostels -- located just next to the Bapunagar slums on the bank of the Tapi -- to accommodate people forced to leave their houses. Almost a decade later, the hostels continue to be home to the ``evacuees''.

If another pointer was necessary to the city administration's inadequacy in taking care of the disaster-affected, the hostels offer it. They seem especially ironical when one considers the Surat Municipal Corporation and the district authorities are now finalising a plan to shift slum-dwellers from the Tapi banks to safer houses.

What makes the entire scenario of neglect more tragic is the fact that the tiled shelters allegedly are being used as headquarters for a thriving gambling and liquor business. Police officials themselves admit the Tapi bed slums are a haven for criminal elements.

Rattan Marshall, who's been associated with the Parsi Panchayat for more than 50 years, confesses he is not too certain about the status of the hostels. ``Yes, we had half-a-dozen hostels in the Adajan Patia area, but I have no idea what happened to them subsequently'', he says.

Collector R M Shah, however, says he has not received a single complaint about the ``requisitioning'' of the land and the hostels. ``Actually, we aren't even aware who owns the hostels. Though it is true some people were shifted to there, we haven't had a single complaint about them in these nine years'', he says, adding, however, that the police and the district administration were ever ready to help them move.

When Express Newsline pointed out that the J J Training College belonged to the government itself -- it was transferred to the government more than 30 years ago -- Shah says he was yet to look into the matter.

According to the Training College authorities, however, the office of the collector has been informed time and again about the encroachment. ``We have maintained a file of the correspondence to the collector in this regard'', says an official reluctant to be identified (the college is under the district administration). ``We have written to them in this context innumerable times, but we've received no reply and no action has been taken''.

According to the official, the land in question measured some 2000 square meters and comprised a huge one-storeyed hostel, where 80 trainees lived at one time. The principal's quarters, which were locked, have also been occupied, he alleges.

A visitor to the hostel today is greeted by scenes of tough looking men loitering at the entrance, others gambling in the centre of the room and yet another group guzzling country liquor in a corner. A far cry, indeed, from the days when diligence walked the corridors and industry was the password.