Many students are forced to put their study on hold (IIT Delhi) until the lab reopens due to continuing cleaning. Numerous faculty members have also experienced losses.
Following last week’s intense rains in the city, students and professors at the Indian Institute of Technology Delhi’s Kusuma School of Biological Sciences (KSBS) are dealing with significant losses. These losses include years of research work, chemical samples, personal property, and expensive equipment.
Many students are forced to put their study on hold until the lab reopens due to continuing cleaning. Numerous faculty members have also experienced losses.
On June 28, at approximately 10.30 a.m., a PhD candidate discovered that the KSBS’s lower basement lab had been inundated due to an intense downpour. The lab in the water was practically knee-deep when I walked in to get my belongings. My laptop is missing. In his last year, the student said, “I’m still trying to dry and recover five years of research work.”
Written by Shriya Murmu , Vidheesha Kuntamalla
New Delhi | Updated: July 6, 2024
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Flooding at IIT Delhi foundations
Following last week’s intense rains in the city, students and professors at the Indian Institute of Technology Delhi’s Kusuma School of Biological Sciences (KSBS) are dealing with significant losses. These losses include years of research work, chemical samples, personal property, and expensive equipment.
Many students are forced to put their study on hold until the lab reopens due to continuing cleaning. Numerous faculty members have also experienced losses.
On June 28, at approximately 10.30 a.m., a PhD candidate discovered that the KSBS’s lower basement lab had been inundated due to an intense downpour. The water in the lab was practically knee-deep when I walked in to get my belongings. My laptop is missing. In his last year, the student said, “I’m still trying to dry and recover five years of research work.”
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Rain causes waterlogging in the lab often annually, but this time it has seriously damaged several students’ and professors’ research projects’ equipment. Good working conditions at India’s top institute is all we’re asking for,” he continued.
An further final-year PhD candidate voiced concerns over the security of the sanitation staff that cleans the work. Hazardous chemicals are present in the basement water, yet sanitation staff are cleaning the lab without wearing any protective gear. Even when doing experiments, we dispose of such material with caution,” the researcher stated.
“Personal protection equipment has not been provided for the sanitation staff. Thus, we’re quite concerned about them,” a third-year student stated. He went on to say, “All of this is highly unethical, and may lead to further damage to the ecosystem or the populace at large,” asserting that the lab’s water had been disposed of without being treated.
The chemicals needed for the experiments were misplaced by a student in the tenth semester. “If they work well in trials, it might take some time to regenerate them and test them again,” he stated.
“Every year the water rises to one foot… this year it was five to six feet,” stated a student who had lost research work for at least a year. I misplaced every reagent I needed to complete my research.”
“We do not have any place to work for the next three to four months,” stated a seventh-year PhD student who has been studying different viral components. There is no equipment even if we move to new buildings because it would take a long time to fix the destroyed ones.The entire process will take at least a year to complete.
