IIT absurdity

First up, this blog is not about any lament on the IIT system, reservation etc. there are quite a few blogs for that. Nor am I calling these institutes absurd (being an alumnus I won’t, even if they turn out to be one ;)).

What follows is gist of a discussion I had with one or my flat mates about where the new IIT in Rajasthan should be!! (O yes, we are appointed by the Planning commission for this). The issue rose innocently from the mere fact that my dear IIT Kanpur is the mentor institute for IIT in Rajasthan and since the location of this IIT is not yet finalized (because of tussle between Raj. govt. and central govt. for location in Kota and Jaipur respectively) for the time being the classes for 120 students admitted to IIT Rajasthan will study in IIT Kanpur.

As it turned out, my flatee favors Kota as the location (I wonder if Ms. Vasundhara Raje has some role in his thoughts). Out of some random thoughts I supported Jaipur over Kota for the location. To be honest, I am not in favor of any new IITs solely due to shortage of capable professors. If there are professors, then I don’t have a problem (brand dilution is related to this, but I don’t wish to discuss that now). Ab Jaipur key diya to support to karma hi hai na so ab arguments suno.

According to him (my flatee), if there is a good academic institute like an IIT/IIM in a city, there is development of that state and city!! I was dumbstruck, so I asked “How?” He: such institute results in fame of that city. That results in development of city.

Me: “how?” (Again)

He: When you have good institutes in your city then children in that city are motivated to study in that institute, this result in development

Me: “how?” (Damn I was in Chlor-mint ad mode, har cheez par, ‘kaise?’)

He: These institutes ensure a uniform spread of institutes across the country. Why should institutes only be in Delhi and Mumbai? After sometime these cities will succumb to pressure of supporting the magnitude of migration that occurs to these cities.

Now, I felt I had to give up my comfy ‘how’ and had to get to some reasoning.

ME: Well, my dear, I don’t think having an institute in a city in any way supports its development. IIT/IIM as far as I know do not pay any tax to state government, so the amount of money that a private institute gives to a stat govt., which in turn might be used for ‘development’ is not contributed here.

Secondly, most of the students in IITs at least (haven’t been part of an IIM except in buying CAT forms so don’t know about them) are from cities that don’t have these institutes so how does motivation factor comes in?

Thirdly, assume that an institute results in growth of that city. Now for those who do not know this, IIT Karagpur is oldest of all IITs followed jointly by IIT Kanpur and IIT Bombay. My dear friend states that people know name of city Kharagpur only because of an IIT over there. I think I knew name of Kharagpur, long before I myself came to know about anything known as IITs, after all Kharagpur has longest railway platform in the world (haven’t you read that in GK book in school?, paanchvi pass ho ki nahi?) . Even if know about Kharagpur, it has not grown or ‘developed’. In fact, take the story of Kanpur, when IIT Kanpur was established, Kanpur city had a number of industries. And almost 50 years down the line, most of these industries have shutdown and only leather and ordnance factory have survived. So is it growth of Kanpur!! To this my flatee said that IT industries are not the only industry, even these industries are useful. Of course they are useful, but how can IIT Kanpur help in these industries, does it supply leather, workers, or capital to it?? My flatee probably never had been near a leather factory and thus I preferred not to enunciate pollution aspects of it.

I had one more issue at hand regarding the placements...better connectivity facilitates in college placements. Example, an air route in the city facilitates the placements and that’s the reason for better placements at IIT B, D and M as compared to IIT K, Kgp, G, R (which doesn’t mean they have bad placements). Case in point was management consultancy firm such as Oliver Wayman etc. that recently visited IIT B but not IIT K ! Those firms who visited earlier to institute, have not problem with connectivity, but increasing recruiters is a challenge. And couple this with other challenges in a new IIT such as in Kota will make this tougher.

Then, he came with the idea that mentor IITs should allow students of mentee institutes to sit in placements through them. This marked the beginning of the end of our conversation. According to me, why should the institute suffer in placement just because it is acting as a mentor? How can you compare an eight pointer among 120 students to an eight pointer in 520 students?

My concern was simply that if you help someone in building a house, you facilitate him in getting bricks and cement; you don’t give a portion of your own wall!!

I tried to reason him that even if we go by your arguments, the well connected city will be more conducive for development. If Kota gets the institute, a tier III institute might become a tier II. But if Jaipur gets it, tier II can become tier I and industrial development (tech industries) might route for Jaipur. This way if more such cities are provided, India as a whole can slowly shift from agricultural based economy to industrial based economy.

For some reasons unknown to me, it is not only true for my flatee but for many others that they accept former idea of upgrading Kota to Jaipur (a tier III city to a tier II city) but not to make a Mumbai out of Jaipur. Anyways, the discussion resulted in me being blamed as individualistic, elitist etc and we decided not to discuss this again. Further, the state govt. is a far bigger contributor to regional growth than an institute: is growth of Andhra Pradesh as hub for tech industry a result of Chandrababu Naidu's policies or because of ISB?

I don’t know what one will make out of these (absurdities?), but I welcome comments from anyone and everyone.

PS: We both have studied in Kota before so have the same level of understanding about the city. I am from IIT Kanpur, and my flatee from NIT Jaipur, and hence both claim to have ‘knowledge’ about this issue. Aise hi thode na hum log Planning commission k member hain :)