IIT-KGP looks for ways to de-stress students
that officials hope will help cut stress in an environment marked with anxiety over grades and landing jobs.
IIT Kharagpur is among the country’s marquee Indian Institutes of Technology colleges that lakhs vie for each year. Only a few thousands make it, entering a college of intense competition with some of the best minds to vie for top jobs at the end of their fouryear course. The pressure triggered three suicides in the Kharagpur institute this year.
“Students are meeting increasingly less. This naturally creates a lot of problems as they end up being alone. This small step will help them connect when they take a ten minutes coffee or tea break,” said Manish Bhattacharya, dean of students affairs of IIT Kharagpur, while explaining another effort to draw students out by installing vending machines for free tea and coffee.
The machines, for which a Japanese company has been roped in, will be in place from the academic year beginning this summer.
The blackout hours are helping, students say. “It was like an outreach programme where the administration wanted to speak to us… tell us what had happened and how it was important to be connected with fellow students. Many came out of compulsion but realised that it helped.
CONTINUED ON P 5