The students' senate of IIT Kharagpur has alleged that “the current known preparation level to reopen the campus absolutely falls short of the claim made by the administration to call back all the students on time”.

The senate, which represents students on the campus, met online late on Monday and demanded that the administration urgently hold an open-house forum with the students “to answer the questions put forward by the students as it is their natural right to do so”.

The undergraduate and postgraduate students of the institute boycotted online classes on Monday to protest, what they called, the lack of planning by the administration in reopening the institute and calling students back to the campus.

The continuance of online classes over the past year has made the students jittery. A teacher said students in the third and fourth year were worried as they had missed out on lab classes, which cannot be held online.

“Minus lab work, the engineering education remains incomplete,” said a professor.

A fourth-year BTech student said: “Earlier, some of the final-year students, whose labs were pending from last semester, were supposed to be called back to campus by April 18. But there is no preparation afoot to call back the 3,000-odd undergraduate students. They are playing with our future.”

That the IIT authorities will not be able to meet the April deadline became clear from a Facebook post of director V.K. Tewari on Monday: “Recently the matter was discussed with the student senate….By May-June, we are hoping to call back the final year undergraduate and postgraduate students so that they would be able to complete their lab classes.”

A BTech student said what was more worrying was utter lack of response from the administration despite repeated queries from the students.

The senate resolution — signed by Shivam Singh, the chairman of the students’ senate — reads: “...the administration simply chose to ignore the mails despite repeated follow-ups.

However, after repeated queries the director agreed to meet with the senate... The meeting naturally raised questions as to the current preparation level to reopen the campus and further mails to elicit response to queries and to put forward proposals were again met with no response”.

A copy of the resolution has been mailed to the director. The meeting with him was held a few months back.

Repeated calls to the director went unanswered. He did not respond to text messages either.

The senate has flagged this attitude of not hearing out students and lack of accountability on the part of administration.

“By sealing all communication channels with the students’ senate, which is the official representative body of IIT Kharagpur student community, the IIT Kharagpur is denying accountability to IIT Kharagpur students fraternity,” the resolution reads.

“We demand that the administration urgently holds an open house forum with the students….and answer the questions posed by the students as it is their natural right to do so.”

Presidency University test schedule

The state joint entrance examination board has revised the dates for Presidency University’s undergraduate admission tests as the schedule was clashing with the NEET.

According to the revised schedule, Presidency’s undergraduate entrance test will be held on August 7 and 8, instead of July 31 and August 1, as was announced earlier.