Priya Ranjan Swaroop (BT/CE/75)


 

- A senior once said “B. Tech. from IIT is a more effective qualification than a   

   PhD from most other institutions.” It took me five years after graduation in    

   1975, to be convinced of that. It is true.

 

I was, for twenty one years, in Infrastructure Projects of various types, in India and seventeen other countries with some interesting projects where I was Project Head. In 1996, I got a call from the Planning Commission (specifically Dr. G.V Ramakrishna, who founded SEBI).

 

He said “I am going to give you a Government Salary, one sixth of what you are getting. But I am going to give you an assignment you cannot refuse. Join as Head of CIDC, which we have formed to reform the chaos called “The Construction Industry of India”.

 

The only compensation you have is complete autonomy and freedom to act with the full backing of Government of India.

 

Well, nobody refuses G.V. Ramakrishna.

 

To see what my team has achieved, google in “P.R. Swarup + CIDC” and see the first 400 entries. If you are in India, look around you and compare today’s systems with those before 1996.

 

-          Along the way, I have not forgotten my symbiotic attachment to my alma-mater. Some of my minor  contributions:

 

1.      Placements for large number of students in the leading Infrastructure Companies (mostly among the members of CIDC or its allied organisations).

2.      Summer Internships for many students.

3.      One-to-one assistance to students for Projects.       

4.      As Vice–President of AA in 2000-2001, I had started some initiatives and intended to start others. These have, somehow, been dropped from the agenda of AA along the way.

 

I intend to re-start these and other initiatives including building of                

sustainable, functional, interactive platforms for Alumni and Students for: 

 

i)                   Placement opportunities.

ii)                 Business opportunities.

iii)              Creation of Corpus for relief for Alumni in trouble-Financial or otherwise.

iv)               Creation of Corpus for relief/support/opportunities for families of deceased/disabled Alumni.

and last but not the least.

 

v)       An improved, transparent and fair process for elections to AA-IITK.

 

-          To enable me to implement this, I seek your full support for my election as the new Alumni President in the ongoing BoD elections

 

-       A major focus of our team will be to ensure that systems and initiatives built by us not getting lost with changing sets of Office Bearers of AA.


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