Delhi, April 28: Union Minister of Education Dharmendra Pradhan chaired a high-level review meeting today on matters relating to NIT Kurukshetra & IIEST Shibpur and overall student well-being across Higher Educational Institutions.
The meeting was attended by the Chairperson, Board of Governors, NIT Kurukshetra; Secretary (Higher Education); and other senior officials of the Ministry.
The meeting undertook a detailed review of the academic environment, campus life, and hostel management at these Institutes. It was observed that urgent steps are required to enhance campus vibrancy and strengthen systems for constructive student engagement.
The Minister stressed identifying specific themes for intervention requiring student engagement, faculty orientation, alumni involvement, academic support, innovation culture, hostel governance, sports culture, and overall campus management. The need to standardise faculty recruitment, ensure sensitive and proactive faculty representation in BoGs, and appoint illustrative individuals with adequate time as Chairperson, BoG was also discussed.
With regard to overall administrative and academic issues of the Institute, the Ministry on 29th March 2026 had constituted a high-level committee, under the provisions of the NITSER Act, 2007, to review the work, progress, governance, and overall functioning of NIT Kurukshetra. The Committee comprising of Prof. Anil Sahasrabudhe (Chairman, NETF & Former Chairman, AICTE), M. Madan Gopal, Chairperson, BoG, VNIT Nagpur, and Prof. K.K. Shukla (Director, MANIT Bhopal) has been tasked to assess academic and administrative performance, recruitment and grievance-related issues, institutional indicators such as NIRF rankings etc.
The Committee is examining the series of issues tasked with and likely to submit its report shortly.
A delegation led by Secretary (HE) also visited NIT Kurukshetra on 24th April and interacted with the stakeholders. On the same day, the resignation of the Director, NIT, Kurukshetra was accepted by the Visitor of NITs and the then Incharge Registrar of the Institute was also placed under suspension with immediate effect.
