The start of in-person classes for the undergraduate second-year and postgraduate first-year students at IIEST Shibpur, which was scheduled for Monday, has been pushed back to April 4 as hostels are in disrepair.
An IIEST official said as “civil construction is pending”, they would not be able to provide hostel accommodation to the students immediately and the classes for the two batches would continue to be held online for the time being.
“It is to inform further that the offline classes for the fourth semester undergraduate and second semester postgraduate programmes shall not start from 21.03.22 which was earlier notified. These classes shall be continued in online mode till 01.04. The classes in offline mode of these programmes shall commence from 04.04…” says a notice signed by the assistant registrar (academic and administration).
IIEST had on February 26 announced that in-person classes of all years would start on March 21 “pursuant to a communication from the ministry of education”.
An IIEST official said the Central Public Works Department (CPWD), which maintains the hostels on the campus, could not complete the repairs on time.
Sources on the campus said parents whose sons or daughters were in the undergraduate second year met IIEST director Parthasarathi Chakrabarti and told him that it would not be possible for their children to attend in-person classes from March 21 if the institute did not arrange hostel accommodation for them.
“In the absence of hostel accommodation, we have to arrange PG (paying guest) accommodation. But the institute won’t reimburse the cost. The campus was shut for two years during the pandemic. Why could they not complete the repairs in these two years?” asked the father of an undergraduate student.
“The institute authorities must have checked the hostel preparedness before fixing the dates for the resumption of offline classes,” said another parent.
Repeated calls and text messages to director Chakrbarti went unanswered.
Chakrbarti had in November 2020 appealed to the Centre for sanction of funds to build a hostel that could accommodate 1,000 students.
“Work has yet to begin,” said an IIEST official.
