NIT Jalandhar has taken a noble initiative to facilitate teaching learning of the students during lockdown period due to COVID-19. The institute has guided all the faculty members to take classes online and use Google Classroom and Zoom applications for delivering online classes. All the B. Tech courses of first year, second year, third year, final year and PG programmes are being taken by the faculty members remotely online. Also, the faculty members are giving students assignments and evaluating the assignments online. Approximately 30% of the syllabus was remaining when the lockdown started and this 30% syllabus is being covered through online courses so that the student’s studies do not suffer anymore. Also faculty members of the institute are guiding M. Tech students and PhD students online for their respective research work. The material for students is being provided in the shape of PPT and class notes through Google classroom.
One more initiative which institute has taken is to tie up with Coursera so that the students can access the courses being offered by them free of cost till July 2020. The courses on Coursera are delivered by eminent faculty from University of London, Stanford University, Hong Kong University, Yale University and other renowned Universities. Institute has also made available NPTEL to the students and the courses on NPTEL are offered by faculty from IITs and NITs. The institute is taking all possible measures so that the student teaching learning does not suffer due to lock down. Professor Lalit Kumar Awasthi, Director of the institute has put on record his appreciation to the faculty members for making the teaching learning during lockdown period as good as classroom teaching through online courses.
Among other initiatives, NIT Jalandhar has invited research proposals seeking solution to the COVID-19 related issues. The faculty members are asked to submit proposals where in specifically they are advised to handle main problems related to Corona virus outbreak. The faculty members have submitted good proposals in this regard and a few projects have been completed in a very short time. I will place on record my appreciation to Dr Shailendra Bajpai, Prof. R K Garg and Prof. Anish Sachdeva along with Prof A. Mukhopadhyay and Prof. V Midha for developing low cost hand sanitizer, shoe sanitizing facility, low cost face mask and low cost PPE which will help in controlling the spread of Corona virus. A very good initiative has been taken by Dr K S Nagla in which he has designed a robot trolley that can be used for isolation wards meant for COVID-19 patients, where human exposure can be dangerous. The trolley is in testing phase and will be installed at NIT Jalandhar Medical Centre shortly. The same facility may also be provided to Jalandhar Civil Hospital or other parts of Punjab/India as per demand. There has been another project initiated by Dr Indu Saini alongwith Dr Neetu Sood and Dr Tarun Sehgal in which they have planned to design sanitization facility for food, vegetables and packed food. Another big initiative has been taken by a team comprising of Prof Lalit Kumar Awasthi, Prof R K Garg, Prof Anish Sachdeva and Dr S Bajpai in which they are designing a capsule sanitization facility to accommodate 10 persons in one go. This facility shall be recommended to be installed at institute gates, entrances of hospitals, hostels, theatres, malls etc. for quick sanitization of large number of people. All these proposals are being sponsored under TEQIP-III program of Government of India. I appreciate the efforts of faculty members of NIT Jalandhar for taking such initiatives to defeat COVID-19 virus.
Prof. Lalit Kumar Awasthi
Director
Dr B R Ambedkar National Institute of Technology
Jalandhar (Punjab)