IIT-Delhi to begin academic session for first-year students from November 29

The institute will also hold its 52nd convocation ceremony on Saturday across multiple venues on campus. As many as 2,117 students -- 843 undergraduate students, 986 postgraduates, and 288 PhD scholars -- will graduate from IIT-Delhi

New Delhi: The Indian Institute of Technology, Delhi, will start the academic session for first-year undergraduate students on November 29 in the online mode, university officials said on Friday.

Officials said that they were discussing plans for holding offline examinations in the future, noting that a cap on 50% occupancy in classrooms will continue. (HT Archive)

“Classes for the first-year undergraduate students will start from November 29. JEE Advanced got delayed so the seat allotment is currently underway. Classes will take place online initially,” said professor Shantanu Roy, Dean Academics, while addressing a pre-convocation press conference.

The institute will hold its 52nd convocation ceremony on Saturday across multiple venues on campus.

Roy added that the onboarding of students into the hostels will take place in a graded manner to ensure compliance with all safety measures and protocols. “Over a period of time, if things remain well, we expect the DDMA (Delhi Disaster Management Authority) order to offer further relaxations. We will then start moving to actual classrooms. Not all courses will go offline immediately. Core courses in different disciplines will go offline first and the elective courses will be continued online,” said Roy.

Officials said that they were discussing plans for holding offline examinations in the future, noting that a cap on 50% occupancy in classrooms will continue. “The modalities of mapping classrooms, number of students in a course, and the courses that will that be prioritised will be done as per an elaborate plan that we have worked out. However, to begin with, classes will held online,” said Roy.

The institute aims to start physical classes for students from January next year.

During the 52nd convocation ceremony slated for Saturday, 2,117 students -- 843 undergraduate students, 986 postgraduates, and 288 PhD scholars -- will graduate from IIT-Delhi.

Meanwhile, IIT Delhi Director, professor V Ramgopal Rao, shared that the institute had received the highest ever endowment -- ₹75 crore -- from its alumnus Anant Yardi, president and founder of Yardi Systems, under the endowment fund. He said the grant will be used for the creation of state-of-the-art laboratories in the newly established School of Artificial Intelligence (ScAI).

“The future progress of a nation will depend on its AI capability. This generous gift will catalyse cutting edge research in AI and related areas and propel ScAI and IIT Delhi in their quest for building better solutions for the benefit of our society, environment, industry and nation,” said Rao.

Outlining the roadmap for next year, the director shared the institute was taking various steps to become more comprehensive to help improve its global university rankings.

“We are recruiting aggressively for the school of public policy. We had also started the school of interdisciplinary research which is doing well. From next year, a bachelors in design course will also be started,” said Rao.