By Vinod Raghavan*
Panchkula: Has the Panchkula campus of the prestigious National Institute of Fashion Technology (NIFT) postponed its convocation ceremony for want of a chief guest? The students claim so. They say who say the postponement of the convocation ceremony.
Talking to Global Bihari over the phone, the Director of NIFT, Panchkula, Prof. (Dr.) Amandeep Singh Grover confirmed that the convocation function has been postponed and will not be held on November 2, 2023, as per the schedule. However, he did not clarify the reasons for the postponement. He said that the new date was not yet finalised and that he was awaiting confirmation from the NIFT head office in Delhi.
The postponement of the convocation is impacting nearly 50 postgraduate students of the prestigious institute, which is a statutory institute set up in 2006 by an Act of the Indian Parliament with the President of India as a ‘Visitor’. The students appear clueless, as they are unaware of when they will finally receive the convocation certificate.
The postponement of the event has also created a different type of problem for the students. They were asked to come with their parents to the convocation. As a student said, there was also some confusion about whether the institute insisted on the students bringing their parents. “The Institute let us know that the parents should accompany the students at the function. We also wanted our parents to be here on our big day. Many parents had got their air tickets booked for the programme. Now that money is wasted,” said a student, while pointing out that realising the flight tickets would skyrocket because of the festive season, many had booked the tickets well in advance. Now they have to cancel these tickets. “We do not want to further burden our parents. Many of them booked tickets in advance, only to be disappointed as most of the airlines do not refund money on cancellation or postponement of tickets,” said a student, whose parents stay in Kolkata.
NIFT Panchkula campus has students from different parts of the country – West Bengal, North East, Kerala, Gujarat, Maharashtra, Uttar Pradesh and Bihar.
A parent from Gujarat told Global Bihari on conditions of anonymity that many parents had mailed their concern to the management but till the time of going to the press, there was no reply from the authorities.
Set up in 1986, NIFT is the pioneering institute of fashion education in the country and has been in the vanguard of providing professional human resources to the textile and apparel industry. It has full-fledged campuses all across the country. Over the years NIFT has also been working as a knowledge service provider to the Union and State governments in the area of design development and positioning of handlooms and handicrafts.
*Senior journalist
