COVID-19 rocked the Indian Institute of
Technology’s (IIT) Kharagpur campus as sixty persons, including 40 students and
researchers residing on the campus have tested positive for COVID-19, an
official said Tuesday.

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Most of the infected are mildly symptomatic
or asymptomatic and either at home isolation or at isolation wards created in
the prestigious engineering institution’s hostels, Tamal Nath, IIT Kharagpur’s
Registrar told PTI.

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Other than the student-researchers, 20
other infected are from non-teaching staff and faculty. Tamal Nath said the
situation is under control as the hospital within the campus is monitoring the
condition of those infected.

“We have been urging members of IIT
Kharagpur family to get themselves tested whenever they have fever like
symptoms and they are complying with our advice. This is how the number of 60
infected was known. We are not outside the world. With sudden spike in Covid
cases all around, we too have to face up to the (emergent) situation,” he
added.

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IIT Kharagpur had decided to bring back
students to the institute’s campus after the convocation on December 18 in phases after one and half year hiatus.  Close to
3,000 students arrived on the campus from December 26 to 30.

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“But with the sudden surge in Covid in
the past two days, we are again postponing resumption of classes in on campus
mode and sticking to online classes only,” he added.

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To a question, if the holding of on-campus
classes will now be postponed indefinitely, Tamal Nath said “students were
eager to return to campus, we all want the campus activities to resume. But
(now, we have) no idea when that can happen.” Another institute official
said around 2000 students came to the campus after December 27 but after Covid
reappeared with a vengeance, that process has been put on hold.

In October, the institute had informed
research scholars that those who would go home during Puja had to
‘self-quarantine’ in their rooms for about a week on their return to the
campus.