IIEST Shibpur will bring back to the campus in April postgraduate students of the final semester who require laboratory/experimental work, said an official of the institute.

The institute’s senate has decided to recall the 370-odd outgoing postgraduate students in a phased manner.

At a virtual meeting the of the Indian Institute of Engineering Science and Technology (IIEST) director, Parthasarathi Chakrabarti, explained to the students’ representatives that the institute cannot decide on bringing undergraduate students on the campus on its own as the state government has not allowed as yet reopening of any higher education institutes across the state.

Demands to recall students and reopen the campus for in-person classes both at undergraduate and postgraduate levels have been raised in recent times.

“It has been decided that the outgoing batch of postgraduate students would be recalled now following the Unlock-V directive issued by the Centre. We have already recalled the research scholars. Any further assembly at this moment when a surge of active cases is being witnessed would not be advisable,” said an official of IIEST.

The Centre in its Unlock-V directive last year had said higher education institutions could reopen from October 15 for research scholars and postgraduate students in technology and science streams requiring laboratory/experimental work.

The detailed standard operating procedure (SOP) that would have to be followed while recalling the students of masters’ fourth-semester would be announced soon.

Asked why other students were not being recalled, an official said: “We are sure that the Bengal government which has not reopened its colleges and universities because of the pandemic will disallow IIEST to reopen.”

The state government has allowed reopening of schools for students of Classes IX to XII from February 12 and one of the objectives behind reopening was to let students about to write their board exams can attend some practical classes.