My roots are in Udaipur. My grandfather migrated from our ancestral village Mandalgarh near Bhilwara and settled in Panchwati in udaipur. My father was a law graduate and served as a judicial officer and retired as a judge from Rajasthan High court. My mother was a homemaker. We were three siblings - two brothers and one sister. Though being from Udaipur I never studied or lived here and did my schooling from various towns where my father was posted. I did my secondary and higher secondary schooling at Happy School, Alwar affiliated to Rajasthan board. My critical years were all in Alwar.
I joined BITS Pilani in 1971. My school life was spent in a protected environment of huge government houses. Pilani was my first exposure to competing on my own in the outside world.. The best thing I liked about BITS Pilani was that from day one you get a single occupancy room at hostel. So you have your privacy and you get a lot of time to yourself. In college most of us who were from Rajasthan Board faced the problem of spoken English.
At Techno NJR I see many students using Hindi medium schooling as an excuse for not doing well in their Engineering courses. Having gone through this problem myself; I know that it just needs some efforts to overcome this problem. Subscribing to English newspaper, reading out portions of it, making a small group of students with similar problems and communicating with each other in English; all it needs is to make efforts. Many students can write good English but lack good verbal or communication skills. What I personally believe is that if you can write well in English it means you can think in English and if you can think in English you can definitely speak it with some practice.
Stress on soft skill has come in focus because it has been found that Indian students, mostly Hindi speaking north Indian students lack these skills though they may be good in technical knowledge. This certainly is a major issue with Udaipur students. Techno NJR therefore lays a lot of stress on soft skills- spoken English, aptitude, personality development, group discussion etc.
It took me 5-8 years to know what business was all about and by then I had decided to be an entrepreneur. I left my job in 1987 and moved to Delhi to set up my company Lifestyle Exports..My mentor and guide in business was Sheikh Abdul Fatah Marafie, Chairman of powerful Marafie group of Kuwait, who supported me in my initial years of business. He gave me the opportunity to supply many items to his companies in Kuwait and the major breakthrough came when I got a significantly large order for supply of marble from Udaipur for renovation of his hotels which were destroyed by Iraq in 1992 invasion of Kuwait.In 1995, I tried my hand at TV serials and promotional films also. Only notable promotional film I made was a promotional film for Indira Gandhi Hockey tournament with Shahrukh Khan, Anil Kapoor, Saif Ali Khan and others.
For the last eight years I have moved myself away from businesses and I am currently focusing all my energy on Techno India NJR.
Techno India NJR is a non-profit organization in real sense. People were puzzled when we declared at its inception in 2008 that we will not accept any donations for admissions against management seats. In last five years every single admission against the management seat has been on merit and without any donation. Both Mrs. Meera Ranawat and I, we do not draw any salary or profit from Techno NJR. Every single rupee earned by the college is spent on its faculty, student welfare or setting up international quality labs.
It is necessary for any institute to have certain minimum number of fees paying students to remain self sustaining and financially viable. But at the same time accepting unsuitable and unserious students can compromise the quality of the institute in long term and therefore Techno NJR has kept away from race amongst colleges for filling seats through whatever means.Well at BITS, we have gone through a highly competitive environment, whereas in today's private engineering colleges this fierce sense of competition is missing. As number of engineering colleges and seats has grown manifold, there has been resultant fall in the quality of students joining Private engineering colleges.
I am generally blamed for putting tremendous pressure on students at Techno NJR. Many senior faculty members at Techno NJR also share my view that we need to create pressure on students for making them perform better as they need to compete with the best in the country when they pass out. We like to benchmark them against students from good colleges in Banglore, Pune and Mumbai.
There is no doubt that these students are bright and smart but they have to learn the value of discipline and hard work: both required for success in life. Four years that they spend at college should mold them to become a professional later in life. We can not take an easy view that college years are meant to be fun only.
Providing quality education is the mission for Techno NJR. Good placement is always a product of good education. Students are recruited based on their skill and knowledge and organizations start believing in certain colleges more if their students are found to be performing well in the organization. This is a slow process. At Techno NJR we make students go through grilling academic process, train them for soft skills, and prepare them to be industry ready by equipping them with required skill sets. This has resulted in most Techno NJR students being placed with companies like TCS, Ericsson, IBM, Zensar, Tata Chemicals, Sears holding, Secure Meters, Ambuja Cements and also companies in Udaipur like Pyrotech, E-connect, Siddhi Webs etc.
At Techno NJR we are aware of our role of preparing students to face highly competitive job market. Today only 25% of engineering graduates find a good job due to high supply of fresh graduates from various private engineering colleges every year. Techno NJR has tied up to industry leaders like SAP, Oracle, CISCO, CDAC, e-Infochip, Rockwell etc to provide industry oriented trainings and certification to students so that they carry with them industry required skill sets when they pass out.
Students of Udaipur engineering college have to understand that finding a good job is becoming difficult for all students including those from IIT/NIT/Govt. colleges. India's GDP has been around 6% for the last 2 years and it will need life-size positive change in the economic growth to create more productive jobs for fresh graduates
I have an advantage that I am not a pure academician. I have been exposed to academic processes in last years but I have also worked in the industry for many years and understand what they seek in any employee they hire. It is this dual experience I use to create systems at Techno NJR where students imbibe academic excellence along with skill sets required by the industry.
No country can afford to neglect engineering education as it is the driving wheel of progress of any country. World's progress depends on new innovations and new technologies and engineers create these changes. They are the creators of things, drivers of production systems. Students have to understand that engineering is becoming cross functional.
There needs to be extensive interaction between academics and industry. If they work together it will create a win-win situation for both. Rather than lamenting at universities for not producing graduates who are fit for their industry, they need to take a step forward and work jointly with universities to bring in changes in curriculum and trainings to enable universities/colleges produce engineering graduates suitable for them. After all, industries also cannot grow unless they get steady supply of suitable manpower from universities.
Worldwide big corporations work together with universities in many ways: joint research, internships, and projects. Regular interactions between these two result in industry friendly curriculum and students with some basic industry trainings. Some companies like Oracle, SAP, Microsoft, Agilent, Texas Instruments etc have launched university alliance initiatives in India. Similarly companies like IBM, Infosys, and Wipro are setting up centers of excellence in various engineering institutions.
Industry bodies like NASSCOM, CII, FICCI and local chambers of commerce need to create suitable platforms where educational institutions and industry leaders can meet, interact and understand each other.There is a huge difference between education process in India and Universities in Europe/USA. In India we stress a lot on theory whereas in abroad stress is more on projects and practical aspects. Students there learn to be more independent and are more easily absorbed by the industry.Dream big and create capabilities to live up to those dreams. There is no replacement to hard work and sincerity. India's biggest advantage is its young population, but if the country is to progress this colossal majority of youth will have to be converted into educated and employable young population.
We need to honestly introspect as a city that how cities like Jodhpur or Kota have moved ahead of Udaipur in last few years. We have to create more industries and more employment opportunities for the city to progress.
- As mail By Techno NJR
