NIT Surathkal underplaying Covid cases: Students

KUMARAN P. | NT

Bengaluru: Over the last few days, there has been an outbreak of Covid-19 cases in the National Institute of Technology-Surathkal (NIT-Karnataka) campus. But the students and parents allege that the authorities are under-reporting the cases.

The students claim that over 60 students are present at the Covid-19 facility, but the institute has reported only 13 cases on the campus. In addition, the health centre is also not testing the students.

NIT-K recently asked all their third and final year students including the PhD scholars and M.Tech scholars to come to the campus for offline classes on December 27, 2021. For the first and second-year students, the online classes are being continued.

Within a few days, the outbreak started, said a parent. “After my son went back to the campus, within 3-4 days Covid- 19 positive cases started coming up. Whoever was positive was kept in a separate COVID facility that was created for the students,” said a parent.

A student on account of anonymity said, “Many of my friends are having cough and fever. But when we approach the medical centre for a Covid test, they give us paracetamol tablets and tell us to take rest. They are not even willing to test us. They continue to claim that only 13 cases are there inside their campus.”

Parents also complain that their children are being served poor quality food. A parent said, “It breaks our heart when we see hostel students are getting bad food and very little too. They have given only 30 packets of boiled rice to a facility where there are 60 students. Dal came after half an hour. This is not the way the Covid management has to happen at the institute.”

NT also accessed a few photos and video grabs of the quality of the packed food that was distributed to the students in a large crowd within the campus. Students also allege that the cases are not being reported accurately to the government.

A student said, “First of all they are not counting the students who are in the Covid ward. They are telling the outside world that the cases are only 13 or 15, whereas every other person is falling sick and having a cold and cough. Three of them were admitted to a private hospital and they were in the ICU. They were not on oxygen but, this is the severity in the cases. We do not understand why they have to underreport the cases and hide the information?”

The Dean of Student Welfare office and the Director were reached for comments but there was no response. However, students and parents made requests through the media that they would want good health facilities on the campus.