In its first PhD degree, Mandi IIT courts controversy

Dushyant Singh Pundir

Tribune News Service

Mandi, December 25

The premier Indian Institute of Technology (IIT) in Mandi, one among 16 such institutes of excellence in the country, has courted a controversy.

Established around five years ago, the institute reportedly threw norms to the wind while admitting two students of the Lakshmi Niwas Mittal Institute of Information Technology (LNMIIT), a Jaipur-based private institute in Rajasthan.

Transfer from one IIT to another may be possible at an early stage (before 6-12 months from the date of registration), but the transfer of a research scholar even from a state-run institute or university to an IIT is a cumbersome procedure due to different selection criteria and course-credit structure.

“As such, transfer from a private institute to an IIT is almost impossible and unheard of,” an official source said.

But this formidable task proved to be a cakewalk for two students, Priyanka Manchanda and Pankaj Kumar Sahota, he said.

Priyanka and Pankaj’s only link with IIT-Mandi is that Arti Kashyap, their guide and faculty member at the Jaipur-based private institute, joined IIT-Mandi as the Associate Professor that too with joint appointment in December 2011 at the School of Basic Sciences and the School of Computing and Electrical Engineering.

The students were transferred to IIT-Mandi in June 2012 and to top it all, IIT authorities awarded the highest academic degree, PhD, to Priyanka much before the stipulated minimum period of two years.

Rules state that the minimum period of study and research for full-time PhD students at IIT-Mandi from the date of registration for the PhD programme in sciences, till the date of submission of their thesis, is 24 months. Priyanka’s registration was transferred to IIT-Mandi in June 2012, after completing four-years of PhD study at LNMIIT, Jaipur. She was registered for the PhD programme at LNMIIT in September 2008.

She submitted her thesis in a year in June 2013. Sources said in one-year, she spent nearly six months at the University of Nebraska, USA, and the remaining period at IIT-Mandi just for thesis writing and became the first PhD degree recipient from IIT-Mandi, while Pankaj got his degree after two years, as is the norm.

Sources said IIT-Mandi went ahead with the induction of students despite a majority of a four-member committee formed by the institute for the purpose, turning down the proposal.

The panel of assistant professors comprised Bharat Singh Rajpurohit, School of Computing and Electrical Engineering; Om Prakash Singh, School of Engineering; Bindu Radhamani, School of Basic Sciences; and Manu V Devadevan, School of Humanities and Social Sciences.

Sources said the committee members objected to the transfer, as it did not fit the rules.

Credit transfer was not approved by a majority of the committee members, because Doctoral Committee to recommend and approve courses to be taken or transferred does not exist for lateral entry in the last stage of PhD.

Hence, three members of the committee did not sign on the approval of transfer, sources said.

IIT-Mandi’s Dean Academics, Prof Ramesh Oruganti, however, claimed that no rules were violated and that proper procedure was followed while allowing the transfer of registration of students.

“It is a case of lateral entry,” he said.

Prof Oruganti said the students fulfilled all requirements and even their projects from the Jaipur-based private institute were moved to IIT-Mandi.

Sources said transfer from a private institute to IIT after four years of registration (in the last stage) is unheard of and is highly unfair to regular PhD students of IIT-Mandi, who work entirely in the IIT for 4-5 years.

Interestingly, Arti Kashyap’s husband Ashok Kumar Solanki, who was a system analyst at Malaviya National Institute of Technology (MNIT), Jaipur, also joined IIT-Mandi as Deputy Registrar.

Despite repeated attempts, IIT-Mandi Director Dr Timothy Anthony Gonsalves could not be contacted.

Alok Mishra, Director, IITs and IIITs, Department of Higher Education, Ministry of Human Resource Development, did not attend calls despite repeated attempts and also did not respond to an email sent more than two weeks ago on his official email ID.