With the nationwide lockdown in force, the IIT-Kharagpur has advised its students to apply for summer internships in its departments, an official of the institute said on Saturday. It said the students can also approach companies that offer online internships, he said.

Students of the IIT-Kharagpur will do internships from April to July this year. "We are allocating students to work as interns in ongoing projects in the institute," Dean of Undergraduate Studies, Professor Debasis Deb said.

Meanwhile, the IIT-Kharagpur has formed a placement task force to liaise with companies to ensure that placement offers remain consistent amid the coronavirus outbreak, the institute tweeted. A total of 1,306 offers were made in 2019-20 fiscal and there has been no cancellation so far, it said.

The IIT-Kharagpur has preponed summer holidays by a month to April 1 due to the coronavirus outbreak and all classes were conducted online since March 24, Deb said. The online classes helped the institute complete the classes as per the academic schedule, he added.