Message

Sri R K Singh, Former Member, Public Enterprises Selection Board; Former Chairman, Railway Board

Hon’ble Minister of State in the Ministry of Personnel, Public Grievances & Pensions and Minister of State in the Ministry of Parliamentary Affairs, Er. Sri Suresh Pachouri; Director, IIT Roorkee, Dr (Prof) Prem Vrat, Sri V K Agnihotri, President Alumni Association, Sri J P Shukla, Sri Subhash Sharma, Sri J P Gaur, Alumni Ladies and Gentlemen,
At the outset, I wish you a very Happy and Prosperous New Year. I am pleased to welcome you at our GLOBAL MEET – 2006, the appeal of which should nevertheless be that of an Annual festival of Roorkiites always.
We are extremely happy and greatly honored to have Er. Sri Pachouri ji, the Minister of State in the Ministry of Personnel, Public Grievances & Pensions and Minister of State in the Ministry of Parliamentary Affairs, a respectable public figure and a true statesman. We are grateful to him being kind enough for having spared his valuable time to be the Chief Guest on this occasion.
The theme for this GLOBAL MEET, Vision – 2020 Nation Building attempts to portray the Global scenario particularly in Science, technology and technical education around year 2020. I remember one of our distinguished Alumni Prof. P V Indiresan; who prepared a Vision 2020 document for the Planning Commission with particular reference to Rural Development and Technology Management quoted it very rightly, “Visionary thinking is different. It starts not from what is but from what should be, at any rate, can be. It works backwards from the end and not from now on to the end.” So our intention is to craft a qualitative protocol which in turn will define intermediary targets to be achieved that will ensure Roorkee Alumni remain leading players in building the Nation with all their endeavors, staying at the same time responsive to unforeseen societal and economic changes.
Many of our friends have arrived herein from abroad. I welcome them in particular and invite them for a closer interaction with the Alumni family both professionally and emotionally in future too when they are back. And I am sure this way the purpose of Nation Building will be achieved to a great extent.
Are we in the process of building our Nation? As an Institute, IIT Roorkee provides the Nation with creative human resource. As a technocrat we serve organizations across the country with learnt fundamentals put to application. As a matter of fact, crowning positions throughout the country and abroad are decorated by our Alumni. Apart from holding positions of Secretaries to Government of India and being recipients of coveted Padma Awards and Bhatnagar Awards our Alumni hold positions of Chairmen, MDs and so in various organizations of National value. Be it a public sector undertaking or a multinational or so, Roorkee Alumni are giving their unremitting service. Few to name are CPWD, MES, NEEPCO, ITI, TRAI, COAL INDIA LTD, ONGC, CWC, IOCL, BHEL, TCIL, SAIL, AIRPORT AUTHORITY OF INDIA, AIR INDIA, HINDUSTAN ZINC, NINA, BSNL, FCI, NFL, EIL, MTNL and the list does not cease to end. Indian Railways has seen seven Chairmen positions held by our Alumni. Recently, when I was the Chairman of Railway Board, MD Railtel, MD Rites, MD CONCOR and MD Rail Vikas Nigam Limited were all our Roorkee Alumni. You name a service and you will find a Roorkee Alumnus/I there. Out of 27 coveted positions in MES, Roorkee Alumni hold 10. It is a pleasant surprise to know that 80 Roorkee Alumni sit under one roof of Engineers India Ltd to cater to the engineering needs of the Nation. And that the Steel Authority of India has 500 Roorkiites rendering their engineering inputs to the Nation. It’s high time to revert back to the burning question, “Are we in the process of building our Nation? So YES, we ARE!”
Friends, as you are aware we have been talking about technological reinforcement, modernization and development of the Nation wherein the Alumni of Roorkee are prime movers. How does a Global Meet like the one in 2005 witnessed by more than eight hundred Alumni (excluding their spouse) serve the cause? I am proud to tell you that it does and it has. I was extremely happy to get a phone call few days ago from Dr (Prof) Subrato Ray from IIT Roorkee saying that the GLOBAL MEET 2005 has brought in two milestones for our Alma Mater. One professorial chair worth Rupees 1 crore to IIT Roorkee from NEEPCO for advancement in the power sector studies and secondly a world class exposure on Broadband Technologies to IIT Roorkee students by Alcatel. Competitiveness springs from the technological strength and certainly these efforts are bound to better the way our Nation has been competing in the energy sector and IT issues on the Globe. The count is on..
Another important area of thrust in context of “Nation Building” is to strengthen the field of consultancy. Be it a routine test for a certification or an analysis and design problem requiring innovative solutions; On one hand the consultancy work does the enrichment of academic work as well as the resource generation the other part would certainly be a pronounced increase in the yield value of the industrial output. It should entirely be our effort to add force to the technological expertise to consultancies, those of IIT Roorkee department specific, individual faculty specific and individual Alumnus specific to serve our drive for growth. Being located in prime, at the National Capital, I recognize and encourage an instrumental role of our NCR New Delhi Chapter to come up as a centralized interface between Roorkee Alumni from across the world and the whole assortment of technological needs.
Friends, while participating in transforming India into a developed nation by year 2020 we owe a share of social responsibility as well. Though education itself is a social responsibility, as a Roorkiite we can hold technological upper hand for carrying out upliftment activities for the down-trodden, women and handicapped. The upliftment may not demand very high-technology inputs however an awareness campaign on science, technology education and environment shall make the difference. These areas for example rural and social welfare sector, societal missionaries etc. where returns on investments are not immediate are less likely to be privatized and could be taken up by us to start with. Friends, we are blessed to have crossed the portals of IIT Roorkee, the erstwhile University of Roorkee and I would call on you to fulfil our societal obligations and come up with outlines for an interaction with your immediate neighborhood community to begin with, for betterment of their quality of life.
Secondly, we should not ever forget also the cross-cultural sweetness of such a GLOBAL MEET. It is certainly an occasion where we meet and greet each other, dive in and revive those golden days of togetherness, care and share our woes off the hectic schedules of our daily life. Togetherness in all vibrancy will certainly be a way out for innovation and development.
In all essentials carving out Vision 2020 with particular reference to science, technology and technical education for Nation Building involves perspective planning on a long term basis. It requires an understanding of the likely scenario in areas where technological participation is predominant. Definitely, it is not a simple task to identify the possible areas of relevance that would prevail around year 2020. Of course then, areas such as Energy, Transportation and Information Technology in this regard are likely to be of utmost precedence, nationally and internationally, in the years to come. And today, I would put my request, to Alumni present here who are the respective field-icons, to prepare a blueprint on these areas keeping in mind the majors of the scenario around the year 2020.
Friends, in order to garner various Alumni activities, a strong need has been felt since past few years, to bring IIT Roorkee Alumni on a common platform to generate ideas for Nation Building. The Global Meet – 2005 was a humble beginning in this direction. With the two milestones and the count on, it’s a matter of utter contentment that we are shaping up. Certainly, achievement of the Objectives would require backing from an efficient administrative set-up, availability of good infrastructure and raising of adequate resources. All the same it is disappointing to note that we do not have so far a permanent office infrastructure at Delhi to accelerate all such activities. Towards this high end I would conclude bringing to your attention a task on primary target mode to step in this direction.
Friends, we are greatly inspired once again by Er. Sri Pachouri ji, the Minister of State in the Ministry of Personnel, Public Grievances & Pensions and Minister of State in the Ministry of Parliamentary Affairs who has given his invaluable time to be with us. We are also grateful to Dr Prem Vrat and Sri V K Agnihotri ji who have spared their time to be with us on this occasion. It’s a very auspicious occasion and a historical one.
I wish to extend my hearty thanks to all those Alumni and friends who have contributed monetarily or otherwise to make this function a success, to name few of them is Mr. Subhash Sharma who is the Chairman and Managing Director of NEEPCO, Sri J P Gaur Chairman, J P Group, Sri Rupen Patel Managing Director, Patel Engineers and Sri J P Shukla MD, Rail Vikas Nigam Limited.In the end I wish you all a very Happy New Year again. Thank you.