New Delhi, Oct 12, 2026 16:29 IST The Indian Institute of Technology (BHU) Varanasi has constituted a nine-member committee to oversee urine-based drug testing for newly admitted students across its undergraduate, postgraduate, and doctoral programs. The initiative comes in response to a directive from the Union Ministry of Education instructing higher educational institutions, including IITs and IIMs, to implement drug-testing measures.
An official notification released by the institute’s Deputy Registrar for Administration on Saturday states that the newly formed panel includes faculty members and medical professionals from both IIT (BHU) and Banaras Hindu University (BHU). The planned testing program will encompass students enrolling in B.Tech, M.Tech, Integrated Dual Degree, and PhD programs, marking the first time the institute has established a dedicated oversight committee for this purpose.
The committee will be chaired by Professor Rajesh Kumar, who serves as the Dean of Student Welfare at IIT (BHU). Additional panel members include Professor Devendra Singh, Professor Medha Jha, Professor Abhishek Kumar Srivastava, Dr. Ajit Kumar Mishra, Professor Kiran Giri from the Department of Pharmacology at IMS (BHU), Dr. Deepa Rani from the Department of Pathology, Professor Kamlesh Palundurkar, who heads the Department of Biochemistry at BHU, and Tushar Kumar. This group will guide the implementation of urine-based testing in alignment with central directives, utilizing the expertise of medical professionals to coordinate the process.
While student consent forms an essential component of the federal guidelines, the institute's current notification does not outline the precise procedure for securing that consent, nor does it establish a testing schedule or protocol for managing positive test results. Comprehensive details regarding the operational framework, the handling of outcomes, and any potential follow-up measures are still pending.
IIT (BHU) admits approximately 1,500 students into its B.Tech and Integrated Dual Degree courses annually, along with around 400 individuals in M.Tech and M.Pharm programs and roughly 300 doctoral scholars. Although the testing framework is intended to cover new admissions across these programs, the exact volume of tested individuals and the rollout timeline have yet to be determined.
The creation of the committee represents an initial operational phase toward fulfilling the education ministry's guidance. Subsequent developments will rely on the establishment of explicit testing protocols, formal consent mechanisms, and administrative arrangements for managing the data as the institution prepares to roll out the initiative.