COEP master expansion plan gets underway

The College of Engineering Pune8217;s COEP master expansion plan has finally seen the light with the girls8217; hostel expected to get ready within a month. The hostel will accommodate 400 girl students, said Dr Anil Sahasrabuddhe, director of COEP. This will be supplemented by a boys8217; hostel in the next couple of years. He was speaking at the first Global Meet of COEP Alumni Association on Sunday. 8220;The phase one of this master plan to be completed in two years will also include developing the academic complex and library and knowledge centre and a guest house,8221; said Christopher Beninger of Christopher Charles Beninger Architects Private Limited, who has designed and will implement the master plan.

Considering that the number of students studying in the college will go up from the present 3300 to 6500 in the next five years, the college has also planned a new boat club, auditorium, students8217; centre and additional housing for students and faculty. 8220;All this keeping the college greenery intact, enhancing river connections and consolidating parking lots,8221; Beninger said. 8220;Our goal is to make the college 50 per cent self-sustainable in the next two years gradually moving to 100 self-sustainability,8221; Sahasrabuddhe said. The architects have also planned a pedestrian plaza above the main road for students to easily go from one campus to another. 8220;However, that shall become a reality only if the Pune Municipal Corporation and the state government supports it,8221; said Beninger adding that the total master plan is worth Rs 250 core. 8220;Of these, we are pursuing with the government to give us at least 25 crore, while the rest will be raised by the college,8221; said Sahasrabuddhe. Meanwhile, the COEP Alumni Association has decided to send a memorandum to the Pune Municipal Corporation against the two proposed flyovers near Sancheti Hospital that shall disturb the college campus. Dr Pratap Raval, professor with Centre for Environment and Sustainable Infrastructure Development said that one of the flyovers would disturb the Electronics and Telecommunication Department of the College. Speaking about the future plans of the Alumni, Dr D J Doke said that the association shall come up with a classified list of COEPian Industrialists like the Yellow Pages, add a distinguished alumni chair for every department, increasing scholarship corpus so that about 3-4 lakh can be given every year.

Today, the alumni association has a total of 12,000 members including 6500 Indian members, 1500 from the USA and 3500 from the staff.

99-year old COEP alumnus
In 1928, term fee for civil engineering course was Rs 50 in COEP
. Perhaps, the only person to tell you this would be 99-year- old Keshav Shivram Joglekar, the oldest alive alumnus of the college, who graduated in the year 1931. Professor S Mandke introduced Joglekar in his absence during the first global meet of COEP Alumni Association, on Sunday. Joglekar couldn8217;t make it to the meet due to personal reasons.
Joglekar, fondly called as Nanasaheb, had worked with V R Ranade and Sons for 18 years after passing out from COEP. 8220;He had contributed in the construction of a couple of buildings during British period. He had also worked in Coimbatore, Rameshwaram and other parts of the country,8221; said Professor S Mandke.
Later, he returned to Pune to become a licenced Pune Municipal Corporation surveyor and was instrumental in planning the bungalows on Prabhat Road. The government accredited him as a certified evaluation engineer. 8220;He still writes the evaluation reports and has recently completed framing this year8217;s report,8221; Mandke said. Incidentally, the next two generations after Nanasaheb8212;Sadashiv Joglekar and Aniket Joglekar too are alumni of the College. Sadashiv is from the 1963 batch of mechanical engineering while Aniket is from the 1993 batch of Civil Engineering.