Irani goes to IIT hostels, stirs soul curry

New Delhi: HRD minister Smriti Irani put IIT-D faculty and staff to a scramble when she paid a surprise visit to two hostels on Friday. She did that after inaugurating a new lecture hall, laying the foundation of engineering blocks and research park, and launching the Unnat Bharat Abhiyan Cell. “This is my first interaction with you. I was thinking of inaugurating and quietly leaving, but will make unscheduled visits to Shivalik and Kailash.I want to see the conditions in which our students live and know what facilities you still want in the hostel,” Irani told students.
Irani stopped at Kailash first, trailed by nervous faculty-members and students.
Then she was told about a single water cooler serving all 375 residents of Shivalik hostel for men. “There are four wings and four floors and all of us have to come to the ground floor for water,” said a student.
Puneet Kumar, a civil engineering student, said they should be allowed to use small coolers in summer. The students complained about the food too. Irani then asked if the toilets stink.
The minister drank tea at the mess and spent a long time in the kitchen. A dinner slightly different from the usual was put together for the night and the staff had even put out nicer plates. “We only see these plates about twice a year,” a student said.
Irani advised IIT director V Ramgopal Rao to install LED bulbs as they are brighter and energy-efficient.
Earlier, at the launch, Irani told the audience that 143 girls of the first 300 selected for Udaan—a project to help girls crack the engineering entrance exam—had cleared the Joint Entrance Examination (Mains).
She added that two of the four centres where Navodaya Vidyalayas collaborated with a foundation to coach students for JEE — Bangalore and Pune — the success-rate was 100%. She also encouraged students to inform her of children who may be disabled or belong to poor families so that she could extend support to them.
Irani described Unnat Bharat Abhiyan as “an active engagement between educational institutions and society”. As part of it, institutions work for the development of villages or local communities, mainly through technological interventions. IIT Delhi is the nodal centre for this.