Research scholars who enrolled at IIT Kharagpur in July have been told that they “need to make arrangements for accommodation outside the institute on your own” because of “ severe shortage of hostel facilities”.
The PhD admission cell of the institute sent the email to the newly admitted research scholars last week.
Each scholar is usually allotted a room, which he or she does not have to share with others.
But the surge in the number of research scholars over the past few years, coupled with the failure to complete the construction of a new hostel, led to this situation, said sources on the campus.
The email says: “As mentioned in the PhD brochure and also in your offer letter, due to a severe shortage of hostel facilities, the institute is not in a position to provide hostel accommodations to newly admitted PhD scholars. Hence you need to make arrangements for accommodation outside the institute on your own.”
The mail says: “However, efforts will be made to provide some temporary accommodation on sharing basis, strictly for a few days only.”
The research scholars who reported to the campus on July 15 and those who will arrive on July 24 have received the email.
Calls and text messages from this newspaper to the IIT Kharagpur director, V.K. Tewari, failed to elicit any response.
At the IIT, students are provided accommodation in 22 halls of residence —14 for boys, six for girls and two for research scholars staying on the campus with their families.
The researchers who are staying alone are accommodated in the 20 hostels for undergraduate and postgraduate students.
An IIT teacher said the number of research scholars has shot up over the years.
“The number of undergraduate and postgraduate students has also increased with the introduction of fresh quotas in 2019. Since the construction of a hostel that can accommodate 1,500 students is not yet over, the problem of accommodation is there,” he said.
IIT Kharagpur had 12,000 students before 2019. Now, the count has increased to 15,000.
Metro had reported in April 2022 that the IIT was forced to stagger the arrival of first-year students, who were then attending online classes, because of a lack of adequate accommodation facilities on the campus.
The construction of the 1,500-seat hostel got delayed because of the pandemic-induced disruption, an IIT official said.
A research scholar said the constriction of the new hostel was announced several years ago. “It is not clear why the authorities could not make the hostel ready by now,” he said.
The lack of adequate hostel accommodation, along with poor water and electric supply to the hostels, has been troubling students so much that those emerged as key issues in the students’ body elections held in April.
A candidate vying for the post of vice-president had then written in the “Know Your Candidate” segment on the Facebook page of The Scholars’ Avenue, a media body on the campus: “There have been accommodation issues.... I have been assured that by the end of July, there will be new halls of residence....”
A newly admitted research scholar said the emails from the PhD cell “suggest the accommodation issue has not been resolved”.
