IIT Kharagpur has made air-conditioned rooms available for students to study during the ongoing end-semester examinations because of the heat spell.
The dean of students’ office in an email to students on Wednesday mentioned a list of AC rooms where the students could study.
The mail contains a list of students. Mentioned against each name are the slots when he or she can study in an AC room.
The arrangements started on April 19 and will continue till April 27.
An official of the institute said the West Bengal State Electricity Distribution Company Limited, the government-run utility that supplies power to Kharagpur, repaired a 33kV underground cable on Sunday following complaints of erratic supply to the hostels and classrooms.
“That has stabilised the supply. But fans are not adequate to beat the unbearable heat. So AC rooms have been made available to the students,” the official said.
The day temperature has been upwards of 40 degrees Celsius in Paschim Medinipur district every day for the past few days.
The Scholars’ Avenue, a media platform run by students at the institute, put out a message on its Facebook page on Monday highlighting the challenges faced by students while preparing for the end-semester exams amid a heat wave and citing a lack of air-conditioned shared spaces on the campus.
“One possible solution is to open up air-conditioned classrooms in Nalanda, which could provide students with a conducive study environment,” the post reads.
“Being the oldest IIT, the living conditions have also leapt backwards in time. It is imperative that with the rise in temperature through the years, the living conditions will have to be improved by taking proactive steps,” reads the post.
Poor electric and water supply to the hostels has been tormenting students so much that the issues had dominated the students’ body elections held on April 4.
The water works department of the institute has warned that water scarcity on campus might worsen.
An IIT professor said the problem of inadequate electricity and water supply had intensified over the past year.
The student intake at the institute has increased since 2019 following the introduction of a quota for financially weak candidates from the general category.
“The outcome could not immediately be felt as the campus remained shut from March 2020 to February 2022 because of Covid. Once the students started arriving on the campus, the effect on water and electricity supply started to be felt,” the teacher said.
IIT Kharagpur’s student strength was 12,000 till 2019. The number now is over 14,000.
Calls and text messages from this newspaper to the IIT Kharagpur director, V.K. Tewari, went unanswered.
