Beyond the rare Rs 1 crore package, IITs help students contribute to nation building: IIT Delhi professor writes

Every June, people like me get a variety of questions from the parents of prospective IIT students. But the most common one is this — “Sir, what branch should we choose?”

This is a challenging question to answer — but also the simplest one at the same time.

Let me get to the simple answer first. The ever-evolving Undergraduate (UG) and Postgraduate (PG) academic ecosystem at IITs ensures that the academic programmes are always in tune with the changing industry landscape. So, no matter what branch a student chooses, if they are sincere throughout college, they will have a successful launch into the professional world.

But here’s when the answer becomes complex. Parents and students often look at branches – and even IITs — as a means of getting high salary packages. The fact is that they can achieve much more beyond the salary package.

I am not saying that prospective students are not passionate about their fields. However, more often than not, parents and students alike have to be reminded that few IIT graduates getting a salary package over one crore are exceptional outliers.

Hence, it is important to think of newer frameworks to introduce someone to the IIT system and its success. And my proposal is this: students joining the institutes can get an opportunity to contribute to nation-building.

And this is no emotional argument. I would argue it’s a smart one, which creates a win-win situation. There is no denying the fact that every student contributes to nation-building, either directly or indirectly, and in different proportions.

However, the IIT ecosystem, in particular, is a great enabler that helps students connect to the frontier areas of immediate and future national interests and priorities. For some domains, national priorities also happen to be global priorities. Of course, the needs and the context of national and global causes change from time to time.

For example, climate change and sustainable energy are primary concerns that are bothering the entire world. A lot of focus resources will be channelled here for research, innovation, technology development, and policy.

Many of you are aware of India’s commitment to the world about going net-zero by 2070. In this direction, India has set an ambitious target of installing 500 GW of renewable energy resources by 2030.

These are big commitments. To make them viable, the reliance on indigenous resources needs to go up. The entire value chain associated with these targets needs to have a dominant Indian stamp on it.

The same goes for the people who are going to drive these missions. The current and future generations of engineers graduating from top-class institutes including the IITs will have a key role to play in achieving these national targets. And with its academic programmes and research setup, IITs can be key to this project.

IITs conduct periodic curriculum review where the old programmes are revamped. New programmes are introduced to keep in tune with the recent and future trends.

For example, one of the programmes proposed by the recently announced IIT Delhi –Abu Dhabi campus is on Energy and Sustainability. This covers the entire spectrum in that space including the technology, analytics and policy aspects.

The research and consultancy projects carried out by faculty members in IITs are inextricably linked to the demands of the industry. Through these projects, the UG and PG students get an insight into real life problems.

Those getting exposure to power engineering, for example, would get a chance to get involved in designing and planning the electric transmission grid for the entire country. Those associated with chemical technology would get an opportunity to develop a disruptive technology for energy storage of the future. Those interested in communication engineering may get involved in development of a strong communication backbone for future smart networks. Add to this the many success stories of start-ups emerging out of these projects.

What can be more satisfying than working in a field of your interest and contributing to national and global causes while also getting handsomely paid for it?

(The writer is Dean (Infrastructure) and Professor of Electrical Engineering department at IIT Delhi)