Science research scholars and postgraduate students in the Capital, who have started to return to their institutions for the first time since March, have come back to find laboratories in disarray, equipment damaged, samples ruined, and their work severely set back — with financial losses possibly running into lakhs.
Research scholars and postgraduate students of science and technology programmes started resuming, in phase, their work in labs after a nod from the University Grant Commission (UGC) in November.
Earlier this month, PhD scholars from Jawaharlal Nehru University (JNU) returned to the varsity after eight months, to find their laboratories in disrepair. For instance, in a TL/OSL lab (thermo luminescence/optically stimulated luminescence), used by research students of the Centre for the Study of Regional Development (CSRD), soil samples collected from different parts of the country have been rendered useless due to a termite infestation in the building.
Ishita Manna, a PhD scholar who was working in the laboratory before the lockdown was announced towards the end of March, said the ruined samples may delay her thesis submission
“Even though the UGC has granted a six-month extension for the submission of the PhD thesis, how will I manage to complete my research without the soil samples? We collect rare, varied soil samples from different landscapes such as the mountains, including the Himalayas, rivers, and desert, and find out their age. I had collected my samples from Beas Kund in Himachal Pradesh. We can’t go back there for at least the next few months because the roads are blocked due to snowfall,” she said.
According to the students, the doors and cabinets in the lab are now infested by termites. “Moss and fungus have started growing on the walls. We don’t know how to resume our research work like this,” Manna said.
Moshahid Alam Rizvi, who teaches in the department of Biosciences at Jamia Millia Islamia, said that the inaccessibility of labs in the earlier months of the lockdown had affected both equipments and research work.
“In addition to damage to smaller equipments like CO2 incubator and Gel Doc System due to electricity fluctuation and absence of staff to monitor it, our ultra-deep freezers were also affected. These freezers are used to store sensitive chemicals, biochemicals and many live cell lines brought from other countries. The cost of financial loss can run into lakhs. A lot of ongoing research work shelved and frozen midway when the lockdown was announced have also been destroyed,” he said.
The situation was no different at Delhi University.
Ratul Baishya, who teaches at the university’s botany department said work was severely affected since all laboratories were closed till August at least.
“While the postgraduate labs remained mostly unaffected due to because maintenance work after July, the lack of manpower affected individual labs running research projects. This caused a range of problems, from termites damaging books and furniture to the destruction of ecological samples that needed to be analysed within a fixed period. Researchers’ work has been set back by a year and now they have to repeat the entire process again,” he said.
In June, a fire in the computer laboratory at Ram Lal Anand College destroyed around 40 computers. “Some of these computers were seven-eight years-old and needed to be replaced in any case. So, it is difficult to assess the losses incurred. Since there was no one in the college, there was thankfully no damage to life,” said Rajesh Gupta, principal of the college.
A PhD scholar from the school of life sciences at JNU, requesting anonymity, said the students who returned a few months are still trying to repair the damage in their laboratories due to the prolonged closure, and desperately making attempts to recover their work.
“Many scholars have lost their biological cell line samples (cells grown under controlled conditions) due to the breakdown of minus 80-degree Celsius freezers when the labs were shut. There was nobody to even check on them, so the students could not shift their samples to other freezers. It takes years to develop such samples. We don’t know how the students will do their research work now,” she said.
While students have been alleging that their work has been destroyed due to the “callousness” of the university administration, JNU registrar Pramod Kumar said lab supervisors are responsible for the maintenance of the labs. “The supervisors have been allowed to open the labs and take stock of the situation for the last few months. If there has been some damage then the supervisors are responsible for them.”
Milap Chand Sharma, Manna’s supervisor and president of the JNU teachers’ association (JNUTA), said, “The supervisors have been writing to the administration about the condition of the labs but there has been no support. In September, we wrote to the administration to allow us to check the laboratories but there has been no response.”
