New Delhi: After a midnight march by IIT Delhi students Thursday as part of their ongoing protest following a postgraduate scholar’s death on the premises, director Rangan Banerjee sent a mail to all students around 5pm Friday, stating that the institute will take disciplinary actions against individuals disrupting the peaceful functioning of the campus, including residential areas, classes, academic and other activities.
On the academic front, IIT said measures introduced in recent years included a lighter first-semester credit load, life-skills courses and smaller first-year departmental classes, capped at 30-60 students. The institute added that the minimum CGPA requirement for obtaining a BTech degree was removed from the 2024-25 academic year. Referring to the mail, a student said, “Disciplinary action means we won’t be able to sit for placement drives.
The external ombudsperson will be appointed next week,” the director wrote, adding that IIT has “continued to engage with our student representatives and other students in good faith”. The director said he had spent a “reasonable amount of time” with students on the first day of the protest to understand the issues. “We are committed to making changes so that our system improves,” he said. Weekend examinations have been minimised and flexibility maintained in credit distribution, it said. IIT Delhi said its grievance-redressal framework included a centralised ERP-based system for tracking complaints, besides institutional mechanisms such as Board for Student Welfare, SC/ST and OBC cells, hostel wardens and confidential counselling channels.
This mail has been sent to kill the movement. I don’t think students will turn up in huge numbers now.