Keeping in mind the recent suicides at the IIT Kanpur campus, the institute has taken steps to strengthen its counselling service by hiring a few more professionals, including additional counsellors, and hostel managers to take care of medical needs of the students.

The Indian Institute of Technology, Kanpur (IIT-K) has re-iterated some of the services that are provided to their students under the Institute Counselling Service (ICS) that can help students overcome their mental health issues.

ICS comprises six professional counsellors who are all clinical psychologists and a dedicated group of student volunteers and faculty advisors. Apart from this, the institute is affiliated with three recognised psychiatrists. There is a weekly visit by the psychiatrists to the campus, where students requiring medication are referred to them.

The institute has started additional welfare initiatives for the students which include the following:

Additionally, IIT Kanpur has also formed a five-member review committee, which is tasked with addressing and promptly resolving student issues with an empathetic approach to student concerns.

“The committee has already received specific inputs from individual departments based on their interaction (Open House) with students. The committee is also getting feedback from alumni and other stake holders and will make specific recommendations to the administration, senate and or to the board through appropriate bodies,” IIT Kanpur stated in a release.

In the past year, the institute has also decided to bring in a flexible PhD programme with admissions open through the year, enhanced financial assistance for PhD students, reduction of mandatory PhD courses from six to four, a committee to regularly meet and guide PhD students, faster processing of a thesis in three months as against six months earlier, and options for PhD students to exit the programme with a MS degree.

Other steps include a streamlined post-graduate admission process, freedom of choice between a thesis or a project in the MTech programme, English language learning and more.