An IIT Kharagpur student who fails to secure an internship from a company will be offered one by the institute, along with a stipend, in an attempt to prevent distress caused by being left without opportunities.

The institute is also planning a programme with parents once every two months to help families avoid pressuring students over academic performance.

IIT Kharagpur director Suman Chakraborty announced a series of measures during an open house with students on Thursday, aimed at preventing student deaths on a campus where two BTech undergraduates were found dead within 10 days and eight students have died since January 2025.

The open house was originally sought by students on April 19, a day after a third-year undergraduate student from Gujarat jumped from a hostel terrace. Before that meeting could take place, a fourth-year student from Barasat was found hanging in his hostel room on April 28.

Speaking at the Kalidas Auditorium, Chakraborty said: “Those who fail to secure an external internship offer will be offered internship along with stipend by the IIT to ease tension among the students.”

He said the Sponsored Research and Industrial Consultancy (SRIC) wing of the institute will offer the internships. It will be like an institute-funded summer pathway for students, he said.

“By taking such steps, the institute is trying to identify the factors that trigger stress among students and address them. Students are often not vocal about stress,” Chakraborty told Metro.

When Ritam Mondal, 21, a fourth-year mechanical engineering student, was found dead in July 2025, his father had told the director that he was distressed over not getting a good internship.

Under the proposed guidelines, third-year undergraduate and postgraduate students who apply for internships but do not receive a confirmed offer by April 30 will be eligible for the institute-funded scheme.

These 8-10 week internships will be based on research projects across IIT Kharagpur departments and centres of excellence.

Chakraborty also outlined plans to expand the parent induction programme — introduced last year — by conducting it bimonthly, along with an annual parent engagement initiative and a centralised parents’ help desk.

During the interaction, Chakraborty presented a counsellors’ report which said: “Academic setbacks, particularly CGPA drops, family expectations and lack of parental awareness about mental health awareness were cited as major psychological stressors.... Parental expectations around academic performance often conflicted with the students’ lived experience of stress and isolation.”

Chakraborty also flagged systemic gaps. He said vulnerable students who do not approach authorities remain invisible to the IIT administration. He also said that distress signals across systems — wardens, faculty, mess staff — do not reach the administration quickly enough, and faculty advisers need to be proactive.

The fourth-year student who was found dead on Tuesday had not registered for the seventh and eighth semesters. “However, the IIT administration did not have any report about this. The faculty adviser to the deceased student should have flagged this. He should have been proactive in addressing the issue and should have detected the distress signals,” an IIT official said.

Chakraborty said: “I have sought a report from the faculty adviser.”