Only 130 students can be admitted to PhD programmes at IIT Kharagpur for the spring semester because of a shortage of hostel accommodation on the campus, the institute has announced.

The institute usually admits 300 students to its PhD programmes for the spring semester which starts in January.

Last year, the institute could not enrol students in the spring semester owing to a “severe shortage of accommodation”.

This year’s decision was made at a recent meeting of the Senate, which decides the IIT’s academic policies. After the meeting, a circular was issued informing the department heads about the number of research scholars they could enrol.

“The way the circular has been prepared makes it clear that the assistant professors, who already have three research scholars, can enrol one more for the spring semester. This is how the count has been set at 130,” said the head of a department.

The institute now has 22 halls of residence (hostels), 14 for boys, six for girls and two for research scholars staying with family.

The researchers who stay alone are allotted berths in the other 20 hostels.

A research scholar said they have taken up the issue of ensuring accommodation facilities on a residential campus as it does not bode well for the institute to be unable to admit students to its optimum level.

“Not a single student was admitted for the spring semester last year. This year, less than half the usual number of students is being admitted for the spring semester. If the accommodation problem persists, bright research aspirants won’t come here. If the authorities are to renovate the hostels so the required number of students could be admitted, that has to be fast-tracked,” said a research scholar.

Admission to the PhD programmes is held twice a year at the institute — in July (for the autumn semester) and December (for the spring semester).

The information brochure for the PhD admissions for the autumn semester said: “As far as possible, the students are accommodated in the halls of residence. However, due to the paucity of accommodation in the hostels at present, Research Scholars who are offered admission may have to stay outside the campus or share the accommodation on campus during their initial months until they get suitable accommodation on the
campus.”

“This means the accommodation issue continues to affect the students across semesters,” said an IIT professor.

The IIT Teachers’ Association said in a recent resolution: “The EC (executive committee of the association) members are disheartened by the inappropriate decisions of the IIT authority to squeeze the research environment of IIT Kharagpur.”

The teachers complained that the new BSc-BEd courses should not have been launched at the cost of the PhD programmes given the accommodation crisis.

IIT Kharagpur was among the three IITs that started the BSc-BEd programme last academic year, a member of the teachers’ association said.

Calls, text messages and emails from this newspaper to the IIT Kharagpur director, V.K. Tewari, went unanswered.

An IIT official said they have yet to develop an adequate number of hostels, thus a cap has been imposed on the number of students who could be admitted.

When the institute suspended admissions in November last year to the PhD and MS (master of science) programmes owing to a severe shortage of hostel accommodation, the teachers sent a letter to the IIT director informing him that suspending admissions would affect the institute’s ranking and the IOE (Institute of Eminence) mandate.

“The situation has not improved much since. The IIT administration has failed to recognise that research scholars are the backbone of any institute,” a member of the teachers’ association said.