The students’ senate of IIT Kharagpur has accused the authorities of a “complete disregard to clarify why certain proposals have been turned down with vague reasons”.

The senate, which represents students on the campus, has cited the example of the IIT not disclosing the results of a survey on Internet connectivity issues faced by students.

An official of the institute said the survey was carried out last August to determine who would have to be brought back to the campus to address the issue of digital divide among the students.

“The authorities have neither announced the findings of the survey nor brought back any student with poor Net connectivity at home to the campus,” a teacher said.

Calls and text messages from this newspaper to IIT director V.K. Tewari were not answered.

Senate chairman Shivam Singh posted on his Facebook page on Sunday morning: “For instance, the administration has not disclosed the results of the previous survey conducted with respect to Internet connectivity issues faced, even after repeated requests from the students’ Senate.”

Classes are being held on digital platforms over the past year because of the pandemic.

“Other institutes like IIM Calcutta had conducted a survey among the students last July to identify those who were struggling with connectivity issues at home and decided to call them back to the campus. IIT Kharagpur, on the other hand, just sat on the survey,” said a fourth-year BTech student.

Jadavpur University had conducted a survey last year to determine who were facing digital constraints and raised money to give smartphones and data packs to students who could not afford them.

IIT students’ senate chairman Singh has posted that the senate would conduct a survey to find out who are facing connectivity issues at home and share the findings with the administration so they can be brought back to the campus.

“Students’ Senate will conduct a new survey to gather preliminary data on students facing resource constraints. This survey will be designed in a manner that enables ease of answering and authenticity, and this shall be shared with the administration. The number of students facing resource constraints, who shall be called back to campus, will be decided on the basis of the response”, Singh has posted.

Director Tewari had announced on March 17 that they had a plan to recall about 300 final-year undergraduate students, “whose labs require physical presence”, from April 16.

The announcement through a Facebook post came two days after undergraduate and postgraduate students boycotted online classes to protest, what they called, lack of planning by the administration in reopening and calling back students to the campus.

“….the administration has even refused our proposal for an open house without any justification, however, the Senate will continue to fight for the student fraternity until our issues are solved,” the senate chairman has posted.

When contacted, Singh declined comment.