India can be called Viksit Bharat (a developed nation) when you walk into a shop in Germany or Japan and there are products with “Made in India” tag on them. We are not talking here about “assembled in India”, but products that are really made in India that emulate global technical standards and accepted globally.
In 1999 when I visited Japan for the first time, I saw shops in Akihabara, a small area in Tokyo, displaying the same brand of cameras but with two different prices – one made in Japan and the other in some other country. The Japanese camera was costlier, yet many bought it. This is the brand that India should create for itself.
When I was an undergraduate student in metallurgy, I learned that Japan does not have iron ore, coal and limestone. These are the three main raw materials required to make pig iron and then steel, yet Japan used to make the best steel in the world. The way the Japanese rebuilt their country after the Second World War is a strong testimony of their “nation first” approach.
A Viksit Bharat can only be built by Indians who have a “nation first” attitude, believe in themselves, have big dreams and don’t give up on them, work on innovative ideas, and believing in the power of collaboration and inclusive growth. Quality engineers across streams are critical to achieving Viksit Bharat.
A computer superpower
For India to become Viksit Bharat, we need brilliant engineers in every field of engineering who will ensure that India’s products are eagerly bought in every country. For this, it is important that parents realise the value of every engineering branch for transforming India into Viksit Bharat. We need students who are willing to join civil, mechanical, electrical, chemical and metallurgy and willing to take lower salary for some time until the country develops.
Unfortunately, from our childhood, we were coached by everyone around us to believe that if you want to be an engineer, you should be a computer science graduate, and no other engineering is worth pursuing. A typical parent wants that their son or daughter who has got a score in JEE Advanced should first try for computer science and engineering in IIT Bombay, Delhi or Madras. If they don’t get a seat there, they would rather prefer admission in the same stream at any of the 23 IITs.
If the student does not get through JEE (Advanced) but clears JEE Mains, then the same story continues with the NITs, starting with NIT Trichy. The search then moves to CSE in private institutions even if they are not high performing such as in NIRF ranking and take donations.
No country has become a “developed country” by just nurturing one branch of engineering or simply becoming a computer superpower. By the way, we are seeing the impact of this on placements. For the first time, placements in IITs for BTechs have come down to around 80%, as every student wants an IT job with a high package. And these jobs are just not available for everyone. In any case, many of our CSE graduates are not developing software that can ace Ansys or Matlab either.
No organ of our body is less important than the other. If every parent drives their kids towards CSE, India will never be Viksit Bharat. Imagine a day when we have the civil engineering branch closed in all engineering colleges. We would then have to import civil engineers from China to build our national highways.
A nation-first attitude is needed so that we become passionate engineers to build the country, not to get a software job with a pay package. Having been part of the IIT system for 32 years, I have seen a transition in the attitude of those joining IITs as BTech students – from wanting to become a great engineer to simply joining IITs for a high pay package.
Flexible education
Higher education institutions should provide more flexible education which can allow students to explore and create for themselves programs that are relevant to India. For instance, IITH has introduced Fractal Academics (some overseas universities call it micro credits), for the first time in the country, which allows the undergraduate student to explore many 0.5 and 1 credit courses to identify his or her interest and go deep into it.
It has introduced a BTech branch called “Engineering Sciences” that allows the students to pick subjects of their choice for four years and get a BTech degree. Some parents ask what job this student will get. Let the student decide what he wants to do: get a job or create jobs. The point is to identify talent and kindle the spark in each student so he or she goes out to build the country.
A very Indian problem
A Viksit Bharat requires not just brilliant individual engineers but those who can collaborate with others. In India the general observation is that we are individually excellent but collectively not, unless we work in mission mode. Indians have worked collectively and succeeded either when there was denial of technology or when we have a clear mission to achieve. Three examples are space technology, atomic energy and missile technology.
If India should become Viksit Bharat soon, we need to adopt this mission mode execution with clear goals and objectives as well as critical funding. Subcritical funding always leads to subcritical outcomes. These collaborations should start within HEIs wherein students and faculty collaborate in a multidisciplinary manner across the departments and schools and also collaborate with other HEIs, R&D labs and industry.
The Department of Science and Technology has come out with SATHI scheme to set up R&D centres, wherein 25% of the funds need to be raised through consortium mode and the balance funds are provided by the department. IITH has recently set up India’s first centre on In-Situ and Correlative Microscopy (CISCoM) for which IITH has raised Rs. 20 crore with the support of 17 partners and DST provided Rs. 60 crore.
Industry theses
HEIs should work more closely with industry for achieving Viksit Bharat, starting from curricula development to technology development. IITH has introduced semester-long internship in its BTech program with 6 credits, for a student to spend a full semester in an industry. MTech students are encouraged to take up industry defined problems as their MTech thesis and the student can spend the whole of the project period (1 year) in an industry to come up with useful technologies. To enable patenting/transfer of technologies from such projects, IITH has ensured that the MTech thesis has an embargo for one year, such that it is not open to public for a year.
Let the dream of Viksit Bharat be in the heart and soul of every Indian so do not sleep until it is realised.
(The writer is Director of IIT Hyderabad)
Published - September 26, 2024 06:30 am IST
