We voiced our opinion when attempts were made to change 'Mardi Gras' to 'Saarang'. We went on a token fast for scholarship enhancement. But, we are silent to the fact that the grants to IIT are frozen and our institute is gradually being forced to become self dependent. Though we are integral part of the institute we rarely ask ourselves, What is IIT? What are its aims and objectives? What role should/does it play in contributing to the nation? Eventually this leads one to philosophic question, What is an Academic Institution?

An academic institution is a center for learning. IIT is an institute of higher learning for students.

Teaching, research and consultancy are the main activities of its faculty. The students are expected to join the Indian main stream and contribute to its might. IIT should be (and has been) a role model for other academic institutions.

On the other hand we have IISc, TIFR, MatScience etc. whose primary goal is to do research.

At the other end are RECs where concentration is purely on teaching with little or no research. There is no institute comparable to IIT in our country that has equally good teaching + research activities. When there is no comparable institution to emulate we will have to become trend setters. This dual role that IIT has been playing since the inception has now brought some dichotomy.

Nearly 35 years ago it was declared in the parliament that IIT is an institute of national importance. The Government of India supported IIT all these years. In the recent past the annual recurring grant to the institute was frozen. We are impressed to become self dependent within a few years. The cost of running IIT is scaling up naturally, while the grants are there where they were. Then how do we generate funds?

The goal of any academic institution should be to be a center for learning and not making money. Since self dependency is insisted upon fund raising responsibility is also transferred to the institute. As the institute is mainly guided by the faculty they are forced to spend their time and effort on fund raising in the form of projects. If the system has to survive better the survival of the individuals has to be some how linked to their ability to raise funds. On the contrary majority of the faculty come to IIT for research and teaching primarily because of their desire for intellectual pursuit. As a matter of fact many of them are not interested in money making. But in the present situation they are forced to do so!

If funds are to be raised through teaching alone then large sums of fees have to be collected from students. This unfortunately mimics the philosophy of 'self-financing colleges (SFCs)' which are quite far from the realm of IIT. It is unfortunate that a synergy group has looked at IIT from this stand point of SFCs (see 'The Hindu', of 27 Dec 1995 and 30 Jan 1996). Our faculty teach here for the pleasure of it and it will be unfortunate to force them to teach just to make their living.

We have been observing for years, the academic performance of students and faculty of SFCs who exist mainly due to money and not due to comparable merit. We will attract more such people if we increase the tuition fees. This is going to ruin the system eventually. It is better not to have IIT than making it another SFC. IIT is synonymous with merit and should it be sacrificed for money? Even if the annual fees were four or five times what they are now, how many of our B.Tech., M.Tech. and M.Sc. (since these are course oriented programmes) students could have opted to join here? No doubt, we should continue to increase annual fees every year by certain amount, but it should not be phenomenally high.

All these years (even today) teaching has been (is) much more subsidized by the government than research and development. Our institute has been able to raise annually 30% to 40% of its developmental expenditure through Industrial Consultancy and Sponsored Research (ICSR). These activities have been sources of additional income for the institute. If money has to be raised through only ICSR in future then concentration needs to be more on projects. Since teaching does not fetch money it is likely to become secondary. This is more an outcome of the circumstance than anybody's wish. Even the recent hike in annual fees for M.S. and Ph.D. programmes has drastically reduced the number of applicants. To quote an example: A department in IIT has been regularly receiving nearly 30 candidates for Ph.D. admission interview and in June 95 the number went down to 12. During December 95 only 3 students came for interview!!! None of them was selected for admission.

The sheer number of our alumni occupying various important positions in our country in addition to the research and industrial consultancy projects completed by our institute speak for the contribution that IIT has been making since its inception. Why are so many multi national companies preferring IITians? Why do well known software companies recruit IITians en masse? All these years the only complaint of the public has been about many of the students going abroad forever. In fact it is better for an IITian to become a technocrat or an IAS officer in India than migrating to USA. It might be enough if we can find ways (even they are harsh) to stop this exodus than restructuring IIT. Over the years we have been keeping quiet without publicising the contributions of IIT to our nation. It is now right time to do that and we students can take constructive part in it.

Finally, it is so also interesting to observe a few relevant points. Nehru went in a big way to raise industries with five year plans, Indira was strongly supporting Atomic Energy Commission and Rajiv gave an impetus to the Communication and Computer industries. For the past five years the government has been worried more about balance of payments and foreign exchange reserves. It is right to consider: What has the government done in the past five years for nation building? If the government can not afford to support five institutes of national importance which have been centers for excellence, what can it do for our educational system? Why should it tamper with IIT (which has been doing so well) rather than improving several universities (which have degenerated to the extent of mere 'degree' production)?