Prof. K. N. Satyanarayana (Faculty, Dept. of Civil Engineering, IITM. Director, IIT Tirupati) in conversation with Aditya Nanda ( CH15B003, B.Tech. IInd Year)
Sir, we understand
you have been associated with IIT Madras,
practically throughout your life.
Please tell us about the different roles you have had.
Well, I started off as a campus kid,
growing up in the campus.
Then, did my BTech here.
So, I studied in this Vanavani School
on campus, from my kindergarten
to my 2nd class,
KV IIT from 3rd to 12th -
and, I was the first 10+2 batch student.
And then, BTech at IIT Madras
from 1979 to 1984,
and then, as a faculty member here, since '91.
Sir, can you give us the dates
when you were a campus resident,
when you studied in the institute,
and when you joined the faculty?
Yeah, as I just told you,
I have been in the campus,
since, I think, my dad was a faculty member
in the Chemical Engineering department here.
So, I have been here
since, I think, early 1963,
when I was less than a year old,
when we moved in here.
And, as I told you, I studied in the various schools,
and been a student from '79 to '84,
and a faculty since '91, yeah.
Sir, do you know of any others
who have had such an extended association with the institute?
Yeah, there are few other,
persons...who are, probably
now, little junior to me now. There is,
for example, Srikanth,
in Engineering Design department,
who again, who grow up in the campus,
and then, did his BTech here,
went abroad, came back.
Then, Dr. Anirudhan Sankaran,
in Electrical Engineering department.
He is another guy who were...
but they are all junior to me about 6 - 7 years,
yeah. Okay.
Plus, I think there are a few more
who are now coming in, yeah.
But, I guess, right now, I am the
longest resident on campus.
What was it like to live on the campus
during your school days?
Oh, it was lot of fun. Lot of...
lot of kids,
because, those were the early days
of the formation of IIT,
lot of young faculty had joined.
So, there were lot of kids of my age group
growing up in the campus.
And, most of these kids, those days,
almost everyone
went to either Vanavani school or KV IIT.
Unlike now, where
quite a few faculty kids
are going to schools outside.
And,
all of us were great friends.
You know, the kinds of activities
we had those days,
playing gilli danda, marbles, tops;
we had seasonal games,
we used to climb the jamun trees
to pluck jamuns.
I don’t think the kids today do
all those things. Yeah.
So, and,
in those days, lot of kids from KV,
especially on campus, would get into IIT.
Every year about
10 to 12 students got into IIT.
Whereas,
now, it is barely 1 or 2 a year.
So, there was...and
the KV on the campus, was rated
one of the best schools in the country and so on.
So, it was real fun
growing up on campus.
Sir, where did you do your post graduate studies
and did you work outside IIT Madras?
Yeah, well after finishing my BTech,
I had gone to Clemson University in South Carolina in USA,
did my master's and PhD there,
in the Civil Engineering department,
specializing in the area of
construction engineering and project management.
But, the moment I finished my PhD,
When I went to US,
those days, many more students went to US.
That was the time when almost 70,
60 to 70 percent of students, immediately
after their BTech went to US for the higher studies,
which is much lower now. Yeah.
And,
and most people didn’t come back.
And, I had decided when I went,
that I was going to come back.
So, after I finished my PhD;
I defended my PhD. 1 week later,
I took the flight and came back to India.
And then, joined IIT Madras.
So, I did not work,
I taught courses there and so on,
but not as the full time faculty.
Sir, why did you choose to work in IIT Madras?
Well, as I told you,
I had lot of attachment to IIT Madras,
but more importantly, IIT Madras has
you know, when I finished my BTech,
I didn’t think I was going to become an academic.
But, once I started doing my master's
and got involved in research,
I felt that,
that’s something that is interesting, let me do a PhD,
and then evaluate whether
really I wanted to get into academics
or get into consulting or so on.
But, as I was doing my PhD,
I felt I was comfortable with the teaching kind of
activities and the research
and I felt that I had...
that academics was something that I was
I was getting interested in.
And, I basically
went for an area of construction engineering
and project management
which very few people, those days, would go.
For example, in the Civil Engineering department,
the most popular areas where students went
for their master's was structural engineering. Yeah, yeah.
Or geotechnical engineering,
and few people for transportation engineering.
So, I was probably one of the first persons
to go into this area
because, at those days,
I was looking at, doing something
different from what everyone was doing.
And, this area looked as an area
that had potential and lot of growth opportunity,
I mean, lot of potential for
future activities.
So, I chose that area
and IIT Madras, those days
in India, there were very few institutes
offering construction engineering management.
The only other IIT that was offering a programme
related to this was the IIT Delhi.
And, we had a great visionary
head of the department at that time
in the Civil Engineering department,
Professor C. S. Krishnamoorthy.
And so, the civil engineering department at IIT Madras,
it's got 5 divisions.
And those days, it was the building technology,
structural engineering, geotechnical engineering,
transportation engineering
and hydraulic and water resources.
The building technology group was
comparatively weaker compared to the other section divisions.
So, he had looked at
what needs to be done
to give this group a boost,
and he identified construction engineering and management
as one of the possible areas
that probably we need to give a boost...
we need to get
going in this group,
to take it to a different level.
So, that’s when
I was also looking at coming back to India,
and Professor C. S. Krishnamoorthy
knew that I was interested.
So, he got in touch with me,
and so, I came back.
I didn’t have an offer in hand
when I came here, but,
but, I knew, if I don’t get here,
I will get in IIT Delhi.
So, I just took the risk
and came back.
And then, came and gave my presentation here,
and immediately they made me an offer
as a visiting faculty in the area
of...and then we grew that area.
And today, I can proudly say that
the construction engineering management programme at IIT Madras
is the top program in the country,
the leadership programme
which everyone tries to emulate.
And, our students are the people
who are setting up construction programmes at...
now running the Delhi programme,
at IIT Bombay, IIT Guwahati,
and other places.
So, so, that’s the reason why,
I somehow felt there was,
here is a good opportunity,
and Chennai, always is my home base,
so, just got back.
Sir, was the civil engineering department in IIT Madras,
is the best in India at the moment.
Right. Was this always the case or?
Yeah, it was always quite strong.
Early days, the structural engineering group
was very strong. They had fantastic facilities,
among the other groups.
But, I think, we have, all civil engineering departments
has been fortunate to have visionary leadership,
and they grew the other areas
like transportation engineering.
For example, we have probably
got the biggest group in the country.
Building technology and construction management group
has become very strong.
Those days, we didn’t have
environmental engineering as the separate thing. Now, Yeah.
we have environmental and hydraulics.
So, we have been transforming
and growing all the other areas.
And, today, I think,
we are one of the most comprehensive
civil engineering departments in the country
and I think, we are very proud of that.
Sir, do you think that other departments
should try to emulate the vision
civil engineering department takes?
Well, I think, each department works
in a different way.
I think, one of the big...other big,
I wouldn’t say big,
the major advantage
cCivil Engineering department had
is, it has worked as a cohesive department.
You can, if you when you talk to
the administrators of the institute,
that is the directors,
the deans or...they have, they find that,
Civil Engineering department is one department
where things, they don’t have to worry too much about
whether the systems will work and so on.
And, the faculty have worked as a group;
very cohesive department,
and that helped a lot.
For example, Civil Engineering department
is the first department of the institute
where they have an annual retreat
where all the faculty members go away
to a hill resort or so, along with families
and of course, the families are having fun.
But, the faculty working,
doing visioning, the strategy planning,
where do we go, and...
creates a lot of bonding
among the faculty members.
So, this has been a big advantage
of the Civil Engineering department,
where they work as a team
and also, we have a very strong people.
So, these are some of the things
I think, the other departments can,
you know, take some ideas
and grow.
Sir, how has the civil engineering curriculum
changed since you have joined?
What are the factors leading to this change?
See, the civil engineering curriculum,
in terms of the BTech programme,
I wouldn’t say, the
the number of grades have come down,
of course, which is across the institute.
This is not specific to Civil Engineering department,
but, the basic civil engineering curriculum
has not changed that much drastically.
In the sense that,
when you did a 5 year programme,
we did structural analysis;
we had 2 courses of structural analysis.
But now, you have only one core course
and you have another one as an elective.
So, to because it has become a 4 year programme,
and the number of credits
also have been brought down a little bit,
certain courses had to be, sort of,
you know, put together,
brought into one single course in the
the curriculum and so on.
Other than that, the core essence
of civil engineering,
I don’t think has changed much.
But then, over the years,
we have brought in a number of new programmes,
especially at the postgraduate level.
The dual degree programme
in infrastructural engineering,
which has been quite successful.
You know, alumni are quite...our students
are quite sought after
by, especially, lot of these big transactional
advisories like PWC and so on,
for the kind of training
they have as core civil engineers
and infrastructure related courses
like infrastructure planning,
infrastructure finance
and these kind of courses.
Then, we have had the,
one of the most successful programmes,
with which I have been very closely associated with,
is the user oriented MTech programme.
So, the most successful
user oriented MTech programme in IIT Madras, and
this is run from the Civil Engineering department,
from, actually, my group,
which is building technology
and construction management group,
on the LNT sponsored
user oriented programme on
construction technology and management. Yeah.
Right, where we bring in students with civil,
mechanical, electrical engineering background,
we take students.
They take courses across 6 departments,
and it is...
So, that’s a, you know, that’s...
those are the kinds of
user oriented programmes the institute started.
You know, we had some of them earlier,
but in the '90s,
1990s - late 1990s
and so on, the institute started
promoting them.
And, the one in our group
is now running for 19 years,
where LNT sponsors, every year
about 30 students.
They want to sponsor more,
but we have said no,
because we want to maintain the quality. Okay.
So, and then, the
the building technology
and construction management programme
that I, as I told you,
I associated with, has transformed itself
from being just a building technology programme
to building technology
and construction management programme.
And, introduced a number of new courses.
It keeps evolving
over with the newer
trends and research and so on.
And, the PhD programme
has grown considerably,
we have many more PhD students now and so on.
Sir, who were your teachers
in the Civil Engineering department?
Well, when I was a student, we had lot of...we had
some of the senior teachers there. Prof. P. S. Rao,
who was then academic, Dean academic. Courses also,
he taught us concrete structures.
Prof. C. S. Krishnamoorthy, then Prof. L. N. Ramamurthy.
I am talking about the structural faculty right now.
Prof. Aravindan, Prof. Paramasivam and so on, many of them.
And then, in hydraulics we had Prof. Suresh Rao,
Prof. Elango, Prof. Thandaveswara. Geotechnical we had
Prof. Sankaran, Prof. Narasimha Rao, Professor...my class,
these are the people who taught my class.
N. R. Krishnaswamy in geotechnical. Transportation we had
Prof. Victor those days, then building technology we had
Prof. T. P. Ganesan and so on.
Quite a lot of them were excellent teachers.
And, we were very fortunate to have them as teachers, yeah.
Sir, what are some major changes you have noted in the institute
over the years, in the campus, the facilities available and also
the attitude of the students?
Okay. The campus has evolved over the years,
for example, when I was a student here,
it was 2500 students in the campus,
now, it is 8500 plus. So, the size of the campus has grown.
I mean, the area has not grown,
but the students' strength has grown.
So, this has required considerable change in the way
we accommodate our students,
the way we run our hostels, the way we run our campus.
When I was a student, each hostel...
I was staying in Narmada hostel,
and each hostel had about, I think, 196 students,
and each hostel had its own mess, right, and
and, the mess was run by the students,
and the warden was very much involved,
the warden also had to...But then, over the years,
this model was not sustainable, right.
So, they got rid of all the individual hostel messes.
Now, we have a common Himalaya
dining facility and a few other facilities.
The tower hostels have come up now.
And now, everything is going vertical.
And, the buildings that were built,
actually, the buildings that were initially built
at in the campus, if you see BSB, MSB, HSB,
even the hostels, were all actually, if you really look at it,
properly oriented, properly constructed and functionally efficient.
No fancy stuff, but they served their purpose very well.
But, with the increase in the number of departments,
number of departments also have grown,
lot more departments have come in
from the time I was a student, if you see now,
we have Department Management Studies,
Engineering Design, Ocean Engineering was a centre
then, now, it has become a department and then Biotechnology,
right, all these departments have come in recently.
And, with the growth in research,
the lab requirements have grown considerably.
So, all this is putting a lot of,
the campus is quite stressed in terms of
accommodating these requirements.
So, now, the plan is to be make everything vertical.
And, I was involved in, as Chairman, Engineering Unit,
I was involved in the new master plan of the campus,
and so the idea is to remove, for example,
the low rise laboratories.
If you take the Chemical Engineering Laboratory,
or the, up to the Environmental and Water Resource Laboratory,
that whole build building, that whole set of labs,
we want to demolish them and go vertical, right.
And so, it's an evolving process, the campus is now
65 plus years old. So, with the growth,
we are having to adapt all those things.
So, that way the campus has changed quite a bit.
When I was a student, there was not a single
eating place on campus. There was used to be one
small place called Knick Knack, that was the only place,
where the current, all that area has been demolished,
where the current Economic Academic complex is coming.
Okay. If the students wanted a chai,
they had to go to Taramani, to the
Nair kada, one of those places.
So, there are a lot more eating places, lot more
places where the students can get together and so on.
Another thing, big change in life I am seeing is, the students,
Saturday night movie used to be a major occasion,
where all the students went.
Everyone brought the pillows and it used to be packed,
but now, when I go to OAT, I see the students gallery section
is almost empty. Right?
Now, people have access to, whether legal or pirated or whatever, to
songs, movies everything and they watch
individually in their rooms. So, the social, I think,
interaction has come down a little bit
compared to what it was those days.
Because, the numbers was small
and also the technology was not there for,
for you to individually do things.
So, you tended to do lot of things together with other students
and so on. So, that is the big change.
The other big change, I would say is,
the institute is much more research focused now.
Okay. Right.
Those days, the research programmes were taking off,
we had people who were very good teachers
and the research, but now, you know,
the kinds of grants we bring in,
the kinds of focus that we have in research,
is much higher. So, these are some of the changes
I see on campus.
Sir, you were saying that, the labs in that area
the Chemical Engineering and all that,
you want to make it to high rise building.
So, in the interim time is there a plan for the functioning of the labs?
Yeah, it is not, the whole idea is not to
demolish the whole section at one shot,
Okay. It will be done in phases.
So, the alternate arrangements
have to be made temporarily
to house those facilities.
So, this is over next twenty years or so, not immediately, yeah.
Sir, would it be correct to state that the
Civil Engineering department is more focused on
consultancy projects than on research?
I don’t completely agree with that,
of course, we, Civil Engineering department
is one of the leading departments that
does consultancy along with the Ocean Engineering
and our Electrical Engineering to some extent.
But, I think, the fact that,
we are one of the few departments in the whole country
that is ranked in the top 50 departments in the world,
you don’t get that kind of recognition
if you are just doing consultancy, right?
So, we are obviously, we are also doing research,
we are publishing and so on.
So, if you say relatively, the kind of consultancy
we do, yes, there is a demand from the country,
from the industry, from the user organizations and
we are one of the thing...
But, I don’t think, it is at the cost of doing research.
Maybe, we should do more research, yeah, could be,
but, its not that we have neglected that part of it.
Sir, in the early years of the institute,
there was a very strong workshop
component in the curriculum.
But, this component didn’t include practical civil engineering,
like, what is the reason for this?
See, actually, the workshop, the way workshop
has been taught at IIT Madras has gone through
quite considerable transformation. I think, in the early days,
when the IIT started with the German assistance
and German aid, I remember as kid,
there used to be lot of Germans on the campus,
staying on campus and so on.
And, those days, I think, the Germans felt,
unlike the kids in Europe and so on,
who have lot of hands on experience, do things,
do it yourself kind of
experience, the kids in India lacked that.
So, they felt that doing, they needed this workshop training
to let their hands pick up some skills, understand the
basic requirements, whether its carpentry or fitting
or welding or smithing or machining and so on.
So, till the batch before me,
or maybe, one batch before that,
workshop used to be taught for the whole day, for 1 week continuously,
so, the students would go morning to evening,
1 full week, workshop in the first year.
The second week would be classes,
then workshop, classes. I think, it was my batch
where they changed it to 2 afternoons a week.
So, the emphasis there, was on developing those skills,
which were general requirements.
Civil engineering, by then, I think,
IITs have recognized, even early days.
For example, even in IIT Madras,
I was just speaking to an alumnus,
who did his Metallurgy here, and graduated in '73,
before I came to this meeting and he said,
they had to do civil engineering drawing
when he was...But then, all that has
changed in the curriculum.
So, I don’t think real...surveying
for example, if you talk to people
who have done their BE's or BTech's
in the '50s and '60s, civil engineering surveying
was compulsory for all of them.
Whether you did Mechanical or
Electrical and so on, drawing was compulsory.
But then, as the other areas grew,
they felt that this was not required.
So, I don’t think the fact that it was not there,
is something to be concerned about
for the other branches.
Sir, can you tell us about
some of the interesting or satisfying
research or consultancy projects that you have led?
Yeah, one of the areas that,
at least, I personally worked on my PhD,
along with my students, is the area of, recently, the area of
public-private partnerships. You know, in India we are,
our infrastructure development, really, the country started focusing
on infrastructure development, whether it is the roads,
ports, airports, power in the '90s, especially late '90s.
And, they were looking at various models
and how do we deliver these projects.
And, one of the models that was looked at is PPP,
is Public-Private Partnerships
and there are various variants to that.
So, we had done research on risk associated with PPPs,
how do you model the risk,
identification of risk, model the risk,
how do you address the risk from
various as angles, whether it is the contractual
part of theirs or whether it is a financial aspect of it.
So, that’s one area that our group still works,
along with my colleague Ashwin Mahalingam,
and all of us, still work in this area of project deliveries
through various models. The other
area, your Civil Engineering department
has always worked very closely with industry.
You know, we have had long
association with industry and similarly, our group,
our building technology and construction management group
has been very active with industry.
One initiative that we have,
over in the last 5 - 6 years,
quite aggressively worked on is on Lean construction practices,
bringing in lot of Lean manufacturing
ideas into construction. Our estimate is that,
in any typical construction project, there is anywhere
between 25 to 30 percent wastage.
So, how do we identify this wastage, how do we,
you know, overcome these inefficiencies in projects?
So, we have been at the forefront in the country
in bringing this Lean construction practices into the country.
My colleagues have been in the forefront
in bringing in the new way of designing projects and
delivery of projects called the BIM -
Building Information Modeling systems.
And, of late, I have also now started working on,
we have been looking at sustainable construction.
So, I have been looking at CND Waste -
Construction Demolition Waste. So,
you know, lot of buildings get demolished,
where do you throw,
what do you do with the demolished stuff?
Right now, they just go and throw it in
in some canal or some ones backyard or in some lake
and it, and part of the reasons for Chennai floods is
this problem. And, we feel, lot of it can be recycled,
instead of just throwing it,
On one side, we are demolishing mountains
to get aggregates to make concrete;
the other side is, we are creating
these huge mountains of landfills and thrash.
So, for example, recently we just
did the Chennai city's CND Waste management plan.
We have found that, almost 35 to 40 percent of the solid waste
generated in a city is CND Waste,
and that’s not recognized by people or
it is not even recognized by the policymakers.
So, we are now developing models for estimating this.
So, these are some of the areas that have
been quite satisfying in terms of
bringing about the change. Right now, for example,
now, I am, since I am involved in Tirupati town,
we are developing the CND
Waste management plan for Tirupati.
So, this was our thing. In addition to that, we have been
doing a number of other things.
I am just giving you some examples.
Yes. Yeah.
Sir, how do you plan to bring about awareness
to the policy makers about the sheer magnitude of this waste?
Yeah, so we have been running a number of workshops,
for example. In the last 5 - 6 years,
I have been involved in about 4 to 5 workshops -
sensitization workshops, starting from Delhi,
for the policy makers there, in Chennai,
Hyderabad and so on.
And now, if you take...and then, there is a group of us
who have been working on this.
And then, I have got involved in convincing Chennai Corporation
that they need to address this and
worked out the their,
what we call DPR - Detailed Project Report.
And, how to collect this,
how do you transport it,
how do you process it,
how do you recycle it and so on.
So, and then, one of the problems we found
is, even if I recycle the material, if I take concrete, crush it
get the aggregate, the Indian code, BIS code
doesn't permit to use or did not explicitly permit,
though it didn’t bar it, of use of CND waste in concrete.
So now, the code has been changed.
Okay. To...so that it can be used.
So, these are the things you need to work.
So, one thing is to do research and just publish papers;
the other thing is to take it further and
work with the policy makers
and others to make changes.
Another very interesting technology
that we have, this is where I think
we at IIT Madras have really done successfully,
is the GFRG technology-
Glass Fibre Reinforce Gypsum technology.
Where again, its a sustainable.
So, all these we are looking at,
how do we make sustainable practices.
So, gypsum is a raw material from
lot of chemical industry, especially the fertilizer industry,
and there are millions of tons of this lying around.
So, what we are saying is, use that, make panels.
So, the technology comes from an Australian technology.
But, that technology,
our colleagues here, Prof. Devdas Menon
and Prof. Meher Prasad,
they have taken the technology much further.
In Australia,
they had only envisaged
it use as wall panels.
Now, they modified, they changed it as wall...
I mean, flooring, steps
and also brought about design methodologies
to go do multistory
earthquake resistant structures.
We didn’t stop with just...
about four five PhD students
have worked on this,
But then, we have gone
and done demonstration projects;
we did demonstration building
in IIT Madras next to Taramani Guest House;
recently, we built 40 apartments
in Nellore under our technical guidance
along with building BMTPC building material
to demonstrate the technology.
Now, at IIT Tirupati, the new hostels
we are going to build,
we are going to use GFRG technology,
right? And then,
we are also working with the possible
manufacturers of the this,
see, it's, you know,
because the one of the constraints is,
where do you get the materials?
So, we are talking to
companies like Saint-Gobain
and other possible manufacturers,
so that we can make this technology,
because, we strongly believe
it is a sustainable technology
and we get a better quality and so on.
But, lot of skill is required in doing this work.
So, we are looking at doing training programmes, right.
So, and then,
we are working with, up to the PMO's office,
and bringing in directions, bringing in
this technology, to scale it up.
So, for example,
Prof. Meher Prasad, our HOD,
and I are part of the high level committee
to bring a policy change to
enable use of this technology, right.
So, I think as engineers, if you...it's...
we also have to do research,
we have to publish,
that is an important thing.
But, if we really want to see
it as benefit to the society,
I think, we need to go further and do this;
which, I think, our department has done
reasonably well on. Well.
Sir, recently you have been named
as the director of IIT Tirupati,
so, what are your visions for this institute?
Yeah.
So, IIT Madras has taken
always taken, whatever it does,
it does in a, you know, systematic way
and with seriousness.
So, we have earlier mentored
IIT Hyderabad.
So, in 2008, 8 IITs had started,
and among them, IIT Hyderabad
today, has probably gone a step ahead
of the others, in terms of the size and all
with the foundation has been laid by us,
in the first two years. Similarly, IIITDM.
So, in 2014 and 2015,
during that period,
six new IITs had been announced.
So, in 2014, five IITs were announced - in
Palakkad, in Kerala,
of course, the site was already...Kerala,
Andhra Pradesh, Chhattisgarh, Goa and Jammu,
and, in 2015, the Karnataka IIT
was also announced, Dharwad.
So, IIT Madras,
our director Prof. Bhaskar Ramamurthi,
came forward to mentor two IITs,
the one with that we are
geographically have proximity,
the one at Tirupati and Palakkad.
So, when, so, once you mentor,
then, you are supposed to get
the programme off the ground, get it...
to get it going
till the director and the chairman
and the board is appointed by the ministry
and then they run the show.
So, Prof. Bhaskar Ramamurthi
had appointed me as, our director
had appointment me as a professor in charge
to go and start the new IIT
from scratch; zero
slate, "you just go identify the place
where you are going to start your temporary campus,
work in with the government there,
get the faculty to come and teach."
So, we started with 4 branches, of civil...
the IITs that started in 2008,
all of them started with 3 branches,
and each of them took 120 students.
This time also, we also took 120 students,
but, we decided to start with 4 branches - civil,
mechanical, electrical,
computer science.
So, civil is something that we brought in,
which other people started
much later on.
And, the institute,
I think, we have brought into a good shape,
we have the second batch running.
Now, as a person who has been involved,
recently the interviews took place
for the new directorships
and yesterday, day before yesterday,
it was there in the press that
Prof. Sunil and I have been
appointed, will be appointed as the directors
of IIT Tirupati and Palakkad...myself,
that is myself for Tirupati
and Sunil for Palakkad.
So, for IIT Tirupati,
I think, see, one of the things is the,
if you look at the...there are twenty three IITs now right.
Out of which, the original five IITs,
and then two more,
Guwahati started around '92 - '93,
and then, Roorkee became an IIT
around 2002.
So, they are the seven old IITs.
So, we look at them as one set of IITs,
which are the older IITs.
Then, in 2008, eighth more IITs were started.
So, fifteen IITs.
And then, now, six IITs have been announced, right.
So, this is the 3rd
set of IITs
that have been announced.
And, in the meantime, recently,
BHU IIT and
ISM Dhanbad
have also been upgraded to an IIT.
Now, IIT Tirupati,
I think, has lot of potential,
lot of advantages - one is, the
AP government is looking at Tirupati
being the knowledge hub,
being a major knowledge hub for the state,
you know, they call themselves sunrise state.
After the division of the two states,
IISER Tirupati,
there is a new IISER that’s come up in Tirupati,
which is going to be very close to us,
about 3 kilometres.
So, there are going to be
a lot of challenges,
you know, one of the big challenges
all of us have is identifying,
getting good faculty members,
and especially, when you are in a smaller town,
it is a bigger challenge.
But its proximity to both Chennai
and Bangalore to some extent,
and the ecosystem that is developing there,
I think, gives it lots...
has a lot of potential for its future.
And the state government
that is quite aggressive
on pushing these things.
So, some of the areas that we have identified,
that we would like to really stand out
is, one major is going to be smart infrastructure.
You know, the country’s economy is growing,
we are building in lot, bringing in lot more infrastructure,
hence, we have a various initiatives.
So, align them with lot of the government initiatives
like, smart cities, digital India, housing for all.
So, how do we align our...while
having very strong programmes
at both at the undergraduate level
and the research level.
So, I strongly believe that,
the undergraduate programmes should be...
should not, we should not tamper too much
with them, we should be up to date,
but you have to also look at
the employability of the graduates.
So, I think the,
but, when, once we get to the postgraduate programmes
or research, we need to be highly interdisciplinary.
So, all other areas that we are looking at is
food engineering, as one of the areas,
of course, the area of energy and so on.
So, but then,
I also strongly believe,
you need to get the right faculty to push these areas.
So, while we keep these as
some of the focused areas,
it also will depend, because it is something
that will grow together.
It is not just that
director goes there
and says, "this is what I am going to do."
A director has to have a vision,
but also, it depends on
the kind of faculty we are able to attract,
and if they are able to push certain areas and
we see great potential...
I think, we should be a flexible
in terms of how we grow those areas.
So, I think, then, the other thing is,
we would like to be...the Kakodkar committee
has recommended that all the IITs
should be about
10 to 12000 students.
So, for example, IIT Madras, after 65 years,
it is come to about 8 to 9500 students, right.
So, it is been a gradual growth
over thing. But, I think,
we need to grow much faster.
So, I think, in about 20 years we should
get to about 10000 students.
So, right, so, our target is in about 7 - 8 years,
you get where...the campus we are going to build,
is going to be...the first phase
is going to for 2500 student campus.
So, we would like to get to that,
maybe in about 8 to 9 years,
to 2500 students; maybe in about 13 to 15 years,
about 5000 students;
and then, maybe in 20 to 25 years to,
maybe, 10 to 12000 students.
Sir, how do you balance your time
between IIT Madras and IIT Tirupati?
Well, as a professor in charge,
I was spending at least 3 days a week in Tirupati,
once the semester started in August 2015.
If required, 4 days but mostly 3 days,
and I taught here...while I was there,
I was also teaching here.
For example, the last semester,
I did not teach but the previous semester,
I taught 2 courses here .
So, I would like,
I would try to get my courses...two days a week
I would spend on teaching the courses,
three days I would spend there,
weekends spend with the research scholars and so on.
But, now, I guess,
I'd go full time there.
So, it has been challenging,
lot of travel up and down, but very satisfying
to take something just with a clean slate
and get it off the ground.
But, I managed to identify some very good faculty
to come and work with us, good administrative staff.
So, they have all been very focused and dedicated,
so that helped.
Sir, what message
would you like to give to the students studying in IIT Madras
and what does it take to be successful in your chosen career?
Okay, I will answer the first question...
second part of the thing first,
I think, it is passion and hard work;
like, right, without that and first, what I find is,
maybe sometimes, as a faculty member you...
you have to keep, especially
teaching undergraduate course, sometimes,
you go to a class, you wonder,
how many of these guys are really interested
or going to pursue the topic you are teaching
or the area you are going to be teaching?
But, I don’t blame the kids for that,
it is the way the society, it is
the way the industry is hiring,
the way the economy is growing,
and the aspirations of their parents and other things.
So, the thing is...
but, the important thing is,
I think, when you are here,
you are learning to learn and
you need to do well
academically when you are here, right.
I also recognize that, unlike in the US system, the flexibility
in our systems is lesser,
that is, especially the dual degree programme,
if you take someone to decide,
when they are a...17 year old kid to
say that, "I am going to specialize in thermal engineering,"
I think it is a little early.
Because, only when you experience the various fields, subjects
and when you have taken them and this thing, you would
start developing your interests, right.
So, but having said that,
but, once you are here, I think you need to be,
you need to focus on your academic area.
But then, the IITs give you such a
an, it gives you an environment
where you can pursue so many interests, right?
So, it is important that you develop
as a full individual; your communication skills,
your soft skills, your teamwork skills,
and there is enough opportunities
in IITs do to that.
But, one of the
things that, somewhere, we need to break
the cycle little bit is, the seniors influence,
too much of a seniors influence
on the way the, especially, in a negative way, right?
"You need not take things seriously..."
That kind of thing, which we find,
there is a considerable influence.
Because, I have seen that at IIT Tirupati,
havings had the first batch,
I didn’t have that issue there.
I could see the kids were much more engaged,
in terms of what they want to do.
So, basic message is, I think, there is
a lot of opportunities coming up,
the country’s economy is growing,
there are lot of this thing.
So, people should go, should be passionate
about what they are doing and
and you know, not just focused on pay packages.
And, when I was advisor alumni affairs, the then
placement coordinator came to me
and said, certain companies
have not been coming to
IIT Madras for interviewing and asked me to
get in touch with the alumni working in those companies
and get them to come and you know,
into get into the placement process.
So, I asked him, "bring me a flow chart
of how you guys do your placement process."
He said, "there is no process, there is only one box -
who pays highest, comes first,
and then who pays next, next,
next, next, right?"
Then, I said, "if that is the thing,
I am not going to put my weight behind it."
So, if salary is the main criteria and the...I don’t...
I don’t think that in the long run,
that is the way to look at things.
We have to look at a career,
we have to look at
what brings you satisfaction,
where you can make a contribution,
rather than looking at salary
as the basis for your choosing a career.
So, that would be my advice.
Sir, what has been the most satisfying
aspect of your career in IIT madras?
Mostly working with bright students, right,
and the academic freedom. IIT Madras,
the IIT system, gives you so much academic freedom,
that you can choose the area
you are going to work in,
how you are going to work and
you know, the direction you want to go,
gives you a lot of, you know, flexibility, in terms of
taking initiatives and so on.
So, that’s been the most satisfying part
of my IIT...that is the...
one is, working with bright students,
second thing is, the opportunities you have and the
academic freedom that you have.
And, I would say that, most faculty are very responsible
and use academic freedom very responsibly.
Sir, who was your role model?
I wouldn’t say there is one role model.
There are lot of people who have,
who I have always thought of as my mentors.
So, we have had great
mentors here, we had Professor,
as I told you, Prof. C. S Krishnamurthy,
our first head of the department.
uch a focused man, such a visionary person.
And, people like, from Kalyana Raman, again
in the Civil Engineering department,
Prof. Bhaskar...
I mean, Prof. M. S. Ananth,
previous director, who has again been my mentor and
guided me on in lot of things,
the kind of openness with which he used to take things.
I worked very closely with the current director,
Prof. Bhaskar Ramamurthi.
Again, the focus with which
he has been driving this institute.
So, with lot of people,
Prof. V. S. Raju, who
was the former director of IIT Delhi,
again, I have interacted with quite a lot
and learnt lot of things with them.
So, these are some of the people who...
So, I wouldn’t say there is one role model,
there are lot of these people.
I have lot of my professors from US,
you know, kind of focus they used to work,
and the hard work they used to put in.
So, there are a number of people who have been influential,
I wouldn’t say just one role model.
Yeah.
Sir, do you think IIT Madras should
somehow encourage students more to go into research track?
Sir, like, most students are un exposed
to research at all at the undergrad level.
I agree, see, my
thing is, I don’t think that
everyone should go into research.
But, I think, being institutes of national importance and
the people who set the agenda for the various research
and even the curriculum and
other things in engineering programmes,
I feel that, compared to other engineering colleges,
higher percentage of people here
should be getting into research.
I am talking in terms of percentage and I agree with you
that, we have not been very, either it is, probably,
I don’t know, whether it is the faculty
who have not taken the initiatives,
or rather saying, adequate initiatives
to get the students involved
in the research activities.
In fact, as a BTech student,
when I was here, hardly
knew about the research
that was going on, only when you go out
and you start your research,
and you start reading papers,
"Oh! my Prof., they wrote a paper in this" and so on.
So, this is something
we have been talking about now,
for a number of years and
I agree, that I think, we need to
get them little more involved.
But, see what happens is, today...
when I was a student, and we graduated...
As I said, almost 70 to 80 percent...
60 to 70 percent of the students
went abroad, well, almost
all of them went for a master's,
most of them, not all,
went for a master's in engineering.
So, at that time, they were still
thinking about engineering career.
So, they looked at their this thing,
and so, there was a higher probability
of more of them getting into research.
But, today, when very few people are going abroad,
because, very few of them go for
engineering programmes in India;
in the IITs that’s been the trend.
Which means that, most of them are not going into,
I mean, further academic thing,
which means, the number of people
who are eventually going to get into research
and the thing as a percentage is coming down,
compared to earlier.
It is something to be
there, you know, be concerned about
and we need to do something about it,
yes, I agree with that, yeah.
Sir, thank you for interviewing with us.
Thanks a lot. Yeah sir.
Thank you very much, yeah, thanks.
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