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BIT Sindri worries for World Bank funds due to shortage of faculty members
# Calcutta Telegraph
Dhanbad, Aug. 2: The only state-owned engineering institute of Jharkhand, BIT, Sindri, may be burning the midnight oil to stake claim to World Bank funds, but a large number of vacancies in faculty positions is making it difficult for it to fulfil a key criteria for being selected for the largesse.
One of the several pre-conditions for qualifying for Bank funds for phase two of technical education quality improvement programme (TEQIP) is that at least 60 per cent faculty positions are to be filled up. And the last date for sending in applications or detailed project reports is August 16.
BIT, Sindri, director S.K. Singh, who returned here after attending a World Bank-organised workshop of various heads of similar institutes at New Delhi recently, said although his institute fulfilled all the other criteria — including the one about 15 per cent engineering teachers having PhDs — the shortage of faculty members was the only drawback.
“As there is competition between different institutes for getting the funds we are slightly concerned,” he admitted.
Apart from BIT, Sindri, four other institutions of the state are applying for the fund. They are: Indian School of Mines (ISM), Dhanbad; National Institute of Foundry and Forge Technology (NIFFT), Ranchi; NIT Jamshedpur and BIT, Mesra.
BIT, Sindri, has already received Rs 12.37 crore under phase I of TEQIP which concluded last year. While phase I was about developing basic infrastructure, phase II focuses on promoting research and development in the institute.
There are various other criteria for an institute to qualify for the fund.
As many as 140 institutions from across the country with 50 per cent faculty positions filled up, at least five teachers with PhDs and 50 with MTechs are to get the Rs 10 crore as grant in aid under the phase II.
This apart, 60 other institutes with 60 per cent faculty positions filled up, 60 per cent undergraduate engineering courses accredited and 40 per cent post graduate courses accredited are to get a Rs 12 crore grant.
The Bank is also providing funds for developing 30 other institutes that have 70 per cent of faculty positions filled up and have awarded at least 10 PhDs and 50 MTechs in the last five years into centres of excellence.
BIT, Sindri, with 80 per cent under-graduate courses accredited, however, qualifies for the Rs 12 crore grant, but a short-staffed faculty is proving to be its biggest hurdle.
At present, it has only 88 teachers out of sanctioned posts of 195.
This means, its present strength is only 40.25 per cent of the sanctioned strength.
Singh, however, was still hopeful.
“We have requested the government time and again to fill vacancies in the institute’s faculty positions and we will now request the state administration to depute teachers meant for the upcoming engineering colleges in Ramgarh, Dumka and Chaibasa. The JPSC advertisement to recruit these teachers was out yesterday,” he said, adding he would also put in a word with the science and technology department.
Singh said that though the deputation of teachers would help BIT, Sindri, the only solution was fresh appointments by putting out a separate advertisement.
“We have already provided the details to the state administration,” he said.
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Placement season at BIT Sindri begins on positive note
# Calcutta Telegraph
Dhanbad, July 27: The placement season at BIT, Sindri, began on a positive note today as three students cleared a marathon screening and landed plum jobs with core sector firm Jamshedpur Utilities and Services Company (Jusco).
An HR team from Tata subsidiary Jusco arrived on the campus at 3pm and handpicked Rahul Pushkar and Sourav Kumar Jha of mechanical engineering and Arun Kumar Roy of electrical engineering after more than 10 hours of counselling, which included an aptitude test, a GD (group discussion) and an interview.
According to BIT, Sindri, training and placement in-charge Girijesh Kumar, 20 students from 10 departments, including electrical, mechanical, metallurgical, chemical, civil, electronics and IT, appeared for the Jusco screening. However, Rahul, Sourav and Arun cracked the test. The trio has been offered a package of Rs 5.76 lakh each.
A beaming Rahul told The Telegraph that his achievement was special as it was the season’s first campus interview. “The placement scene has greatly improved here over the past three-four years. I am very glad to have bagged such an attractive package,” he said.
While Jusco has already made its foray, other companies like Vedanta and Nasscom are likely to come to campus to screen 400-odd candidates. The latter has, in fact, sent a letter to the institute, saying it will handpick students only after their final semester in December.
Last year, 468 students had bagged jobs with top-notch companies, including software major Infosys, which had skimmed off 81. Jusco, like this year, had selected only three.
In another development, 690 students have been allotted seats in the 10 BTech branches of the institute during counselling held earlier this month. As the admission process began yesterday, the institute is taking foolproof measures to prevent ragging.
Director S.K. Singh said a special team of teachers had been constituted to monitor admissions. “It will be headed by Kumar, who is also the general warden,” Singh said, adding that another team of of hostel superintendents and teachers would be constituted to keep tab on campus bullies once the new session started on August 2. “The team will monitor strategic locations near hostels and classrooms.”
Besides, posters and banners admonishing ragging as a punishable act have been put up across the campus.
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BIT Sindri, ISM say Nasscom rule counter-productive
# Calcutta Telegraph
Dhanbad, July 5: Technology institutes in the coal belt are peeved with the directive of Nasscom to hold placements during the last semester of the course, a system the organisation for software companies mooted to ensure that academic standards were maintained.
Most of the institutes in Dhanbad and nearby areas have, however, started following the Nasscom directive from last year. While Indian School of Mines University reluctantly follows it in letter and spirit, BIT, Sindri, has tweaked it to suit core sector employers.
BIT, Sindri, which has so far got jobs for 462 of its students in the 2009 batch of the BTech course, has stuck to placements during the sixth semester for core sector, or non-software, companies. But, it follows the Nasscom order with respect to software companies.
Expressing his views on the Nasscom directive, BIT, Sindri director S.K. Singh agreed it was intended to maintain the academic standards of an institute since students began neglecting their studies after being selected during the sixth or seventh semester.
“But it also affects the placement of our students in software companies. After carrying out placements for core sector companies, we don’t have enough good students left for the software companies that are invited late,” he explained.
Last year, he noted, there weren’t enough students left for Wipro. Chiranjeev Kumar, the training and placement officer of ISM, said delaying the recruitment session affected the process adversely.
“Though we have not yet received the Nasscom communication, we may have to reschedule placements this year to December from mid-September as planned earlier. But a final decision will be taken only after a discussion with the higher authorities,” he said, adding that he had heard that the software companies’ organisation had also asked various recruiters to visit campuses during the last semester only.
V. P Sharma, the professor in charge of training and placements at ISM said delaying placements till December or January made it difficult for the institute to complete the process within two to three months.
Nasscom started the system last year in order to force students to concentrate on studies till the end of the last semester as students often took things lightly after getting a job in the seventh or eighth semester.
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Jobs raining on BIT Sindri
- 432 placed so far, cradle set to break its 2008 record
# Calcutta Telegraph
Dhanbad, June 3: It’s raining jobs at BIT, Sindri, this year as recruiters have started making a beeline for the institute.
With 10 more students being selected by Electrosteel Castings Limited yesterday, BIT’s campus placement figures have crossed last year’s 406 recruitments to reach 432 this year so far.
The tech cradle has managed to come up with such a startling figure at a time when the ghost of the downturn is still haunting major software companies like IBM, Patni Computers and Satyam and keeping them from visiting the campuses for recruitment.
G. Kumar, in charge of training and placement at the institute, said: “I am confident of breaking our own record of 450 placements in 2008. More than a half a dozen companies are yet to visit our campus for recruitment.”
Two other recruiters — Kriton Synergy and Tata Wire and Steel Products that conducted interviews of 16 and 26 students, respectively, on March 23 — selected one and five candidates each.
Till now, Infosys has offered jobs to 82 students while TCS has selected 43 techies.
And, most job offers were lucrative, too. So far, the highest pay package offered by an Indian company is Rs 6.29 lakh. Indonesian company Gati International, which visited the campus for the first time, picked up two students at a monthly salary of $1,500 (Rs 69,567).
Though companies started coming a little late this year, 31 firms have visited the institute so far. “Unlike last year when recruiters started pouring in the campus during the seventh semester, many companies came after the completion of the final semester exam,” said Kumar.
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BIT Sindri set for upgrade
# Calcutta Telegraph
Ranchi, April 16: The state government hopes to infuse professionalism in the way technical education is being imparted in its institutes and, as a first step, initiated moves to set up a board of governors for BIT, Sindri, and push for corporates to adopt several existing and upcoming institutes offering diplomas and degrees in professional courses.
It has invited academics, industrialists and professionals to be part of the board that will eventually run the Sindri institute in a far more professional way, now that it has been granted autonomy by the state Cabinet.
Efforts are also being made to involve private players, including corporate houses and educational groups, in running government technical institutes — existing and upcoming — offering diploma, degree and postgraduate courses.
The idea is to improve the functioning of existing institutes including BIT, Sindri and 13 government polytechnics, and start off two upcoming government engineering colleges at Ramgarh and Chaibasa and 21 new polytechnics in various locations.
Director (technical education) Arun Kumar said the board of governors for BIT, Sindri, will have 10 members and it will oversee the functioning of the institute. Three of the 10 positions will be advertised and will have to be filled after receiving applications. The science and technology department has already sought brief resumes from retired educationists of premier institutions, industrialists and professionals. April 30 is the last date for those interested to respond.
Besides the three, two of the board members would be from the college faculty, one educationist/industrialist nominated by the institute’s principal/director, one nominated by the UGC, one from the state government and one nominated by a university (in this case Vinoba Bhave University). The institute’s principal/director will also be a member of the board.
BIT, Sindri, was established in 1949 as a premier technical institute offering 10 under graduate and 11 post graduate programmes. The institute is spread over a 450-acre plot, 20km from Dhanbad.
The department of science and technology has also invited expressions of interest from leading corporate houses (with net worth of Rs 250 crore or more) and educational groups (operating at least five technical institutes of repute) to run the new engineering colleges at Ramgarh and Chaibasa and a polytechnic at Silli, the home turf of deputy chief minister Sudesh Kumar Mahto.
An advertisement brought out by the department suggests corporate houses which have an establishment in Jharkhand would be given preference.
The government is also interested in introducing a public private partnership (PPP) model in phases for BIT, Sindri, and polytechnics at Dumka, Dhanbad, Bhaga, Koderma, Khunti, Ranchi, Latehar, Adityapur, Kharsawan and women’s polytechnics at Bokaro, Ranchi and Jamshedpur.
“We want to overhaul the existing technical education scenario in the state through the PPP model. Many new industries are on the verge of starting operations here or have lined up projects. We want to be ready to reap the benefits,” said Kumar.
A pre-expression of interest conference has been set for April 26 for the interested corporates who then need to provide other details by May 15.
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BIT Sindri to revamp Board of Governors
# Calcutta Telegraph
Dhanbad, March 22: Having bagged autonomy from the state government and expecting to receive Rs 12 crore from World Bank under the second phase of Technical Education Quality Improvement Programme, BIT, Sindri, is now looking forward to overhaul its highest decision-making body.
The authorities have written to the state science and technology department, requesting it to reconstitute the board of governors (BoG). The move is aimed at making the board more representative of the various stakeholders, including industrialists and teachers.
Besides, it is also expected to revive the board, that had become almost redundant in the last one year with the government sitting on its recommendations.
Director of BIT, Sindri, S.K. Singh, who is also the member secretary of the existing 11-member board of governors, said reconstitution was also necessary because several members had retired.
“The 2006 notification had mentioned names of all 11 members along with their designations. But some of them retired in the following years. This naturally led to a technical problem as the names of their successors did not feature in the government notification,” Singh said.
“Further, under the new autonomous set-up, the board has been bestowed with more financial power and thus its reconstitution is the need of the hour,” he added.
According to sources, a financial management committee will take the first decision regarding spending government money, but with the board’s final approval.
On the decision to include new members, Singh said besides industry representatives and teachers, some alumni and government nominees would also be given a berth in the board.
The board is reconstituted every three years with the institute recommending the names.
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Alumni takes up e-task
- Rs 1 crore pledged for hall at BIT, Sindri
# Calcutta Telegraph
Sindri, Feb. 18: Ex-students of BIT, Sindri, have decided to create a corpus from alumni donations for the betterment of the institute and have also decided to appoint two computer professionals to help the tech cradle implement its long-pending e-management project.
At a meeting of the BIT Sindri Alumni Association (BITSAA) _ NCR chapter _ in New Delhi on Sunday, members decided to appoint a systems analyst and a programmer to help the Sindri institute achieve full-fledged computerisation.
Giving details of their deliberations, secretary of BITSAA _ the parent body is based at Dhanbad – D.K. Singh said the former students also discussed the possibility of providing industrial projects and consultancy work to students of the institute.
“Some projects can be given to 3rd year and final year students, while other projects can be given to other departments,” said Singh, who is now head of the department of electronics and communication engineering at BIT, Sindri.
Industrial projects, he added, were one way for the institute to generate funds.
Among those present at the meeting held at India Habitat Centre were several members of the alumni who were now holding senior positions at various PSUs including IOC, NTPC, apart from private firms like IBM, TCS and Tech Mahindra.
On the decision to appoint a systems analyst and programmer, Singh said the two would be employees of the association and would look after the e-governance work at the institute.
“Teachers, who are far less in number than the required strength, are overloaded with work. Hence, it is imperative to have separate staff looking after the e-management work for which continuous monitoring is required,” he explained.
Director of BIT Sindri S.K. Singh, who represented the institute at the meeting, read out a message from principal secretary of the state science and technology department Sudhir Kumar, who stressed upon the need for greater alumni participation at BIT on the lines of American institutes.
The meeting also discussed preparations for the diamond jubilee celebrations to be hosted by the association’s NCR and Bermo chapters, along with the parent body at Dhanbad, on April 3, 4.
Members decided to raise at least Rs 1 crore to build a diamond jubilee lecture theatre.
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