Newdelhi:1/4/20:Union Minister of Human Resource Development Shri Ramesh Pokhriyal ‘Nishank’ chaired a meeting with all the Directors of 23 Indian Institutes of Technology through Video Conferencing in New Delhi today . The Minister expressed his desire and directed all the Institutes to take care of the students, faculty and their family members and the contractual staff in the campus and ensure that they are not facing any problem
.Shri Pokhriyal also directed the Institutes to ensure that maximum number of students are covered through online courses. Institutes have been asked to place the courses on SWAYAM / SWAYAM PRABHA and work on credit transfer mechanism. The Minister also instructed that Mental health related challenges (during the lockdown period) of students also to be addressed by all the institutes and establish a helpline in this regard. There should be a task force set up by every institute which should include psychologists to handle mental health issues. Regarding the issue of salary / pension/ scholarships of staff and students , he desired that they may be paid in time and there must not be any problem in this regard.Regarding the issue of Payment of salaries to Adhoc, Contractual and daily wagers, Shri Nishank has directed that no hardship should be faced by these employees and salaries should be paid in full upto 30th April.
The Minister appealed to all the institutes to contribute to the PM CARES fund. Further, he instructed the Institutes to ensure that they should conduct active research work in the area of COVID19 . The research work which is already being done should be given wider publicity in the social media and other mediums.
Shri Pokhriyal also directed the Directors of institutes to take care of students presently staying in Hostels. Special care and attention towards social distancing, distribution food should be ensured. Also, he directed that academic calendar of the institutes may be prepared so that students should not loose summer and winter internships. A task force call for placements may be set up in institutes to liase with various companies to ensure that adequate placement not below the levels of past years may take place in these institutes.
Shri Nishank also directed that all IIT’s should come forward to utilize the facilities of incubation provided by IIT Bombay.