NIT Durgapur has asked students to vacate hostels immediately following an alert from the institute’s medical unit on January 5 about a surge in Covid-19 cases.
“Due to the sudden surge of COVID-19 cases in our campus all the students staying in the hostels are instructed to vacate the hostels as early as possible. The situation will be reviewed from time to time and further decisions will be communicated accordingly,” says a notice signed by the dean of students and chief warden.
Research scholars and final-year MTech students were called back in phases last year to let them access the labs and research facilities.
The institute was in the process of recalling undergraduate and first-year MTech students in an attempt to start offline classes.
“Following the prevalent situation we have decided to send 400-odd boarders home. The Bengal government has instructed that hostels be kept shut until further order,” said Anupam Basu, director of NIT Durgapur.
Fifty percent of students of the institute, which admits students to its BTech programmes through JEE-Main, come from other states.
An official of the institute said if some of the students cite valid reasons for not being able to move out, their appeals will be considered.
“Cases are on the rise in several cities like Delhi, Mumbai, Bangalore. If any student from a worst-affected city says it won’t be advisable for him to go home, we have to go through the appeal. But given the report of our medical unit, we want everybody to leave at the earliest,” said the official.
“At present we have around fifteen COVID-19 positive cases, diagnosed within the past five to six days. The number of ILI (Influenza Like illness)/ fever cases are also increasing, which may or may not be COVID-19…. To bust out the myth that we would not get COVID after two doses of vaccination, we are getting positive patients even after full dose vaccination from our campus itself,” the medical report says.
A number of students are among the infected.
Last week, IIM Calcutta, ISI Calcutta and IIEST Shibpur were forced to ask students to vacate the hostels following a surge in cases.
