85.New Director in Charge and Appointment as Dean

The  first  Director  appointed  on contract basis  for five years in NIT Calicut was  unceremoniously  thrown out along with  Directors of all other N.I.Ts. As per  order  from MHRD, charge  was to be handed over to the senior most  professor  in each of the N.I.Ts. The professor who took charge as  Director in NITC was a from Civil Engineering Department. He was a friend of mine and  since 80s we had  jointly worked in several academic projects. As early as 1985, we had  conducted   two summer schools  in Electrical and Civil departments  together, first time  in the college. This was a  grand success and we had mutual  respect and interest on our respective research topics especially on modelling of  systems from input output data. I was a member  of the Doctoral Committees  of  some of his PhD students as he thought I will be able  to contribute something  to the  work being done  by the scholar.

After  he took over charge as Director, the term of the  first batch of Deans was coming to an end.  The  ousted  Director  had  taken  some preliminary steps  to appoint  new Deans by the promised  gallop pol method. Accordingly, one  professor  from our department  who had just two year’s experience as  professor  started  canvassing  votes  for  him as Dean (PG Studies and Research). There were  many senior  professors  who had been Heads  of Departments earlier eligible to become Dean. A few of my friends has suggested  my name to the post of Dean (PG & SR) because  I had more experience  in PG curriculum planning and research. Of course, there were also a few  who wanted to stop me from becoming dean. I had strong suspicion that the anonymous letter received by the former director  on my ‘irresponsible  behaviour’(of  taking  medical leave for surgical  procedure on my eye)  was  probably from one  who wanted  to spoil my chances of becoming Dean.

Anyway, when  the  new  director  in charge  took over, he called me to his office and advised  me not to waste  my time doing  police duty as  Vigilance  Officer and  he wanted  me to  accept the position of Dean (PG Studies & Research).  When  I returned  from Turkey  after cancelling part of my leave, I was  expecting  this position. I decided to accept the offer, better  late  than never. As Dean  Academic for Post Graduate Studies and Research I thought  I will be able to do something for the institution. Moreover, by this time I was convinced that  as Chief  Vigilance  Officer, I can do nothing to stop the financial irregularities  in  the institution without help from higher  officers. So, I took over  and started  exploring  the possibility  of starting  new  post graduate  programmes  in the major departments. After  the   formation  of the N.I.T. no new courses  had been started.

Therefore, the  first  effort as  Dean explored  by me was  to start  new M.Tech  programmes in engineering departments. At that time Civil, Electrical and Mechanical engineering departments had   two M.Tech courses each and Electronics and Computer engineering departments  had only one each. We  discussed  this with  the Director and decided  to start  one more M.Tech programmes in each of these departments. It was also  decided  to explore  starting of Masters  programme  in the  science departments too. Along with this, thorough revision  of the Ordnances and Regulations for  M.Tech and PhD was also   being attempted.  The  one  available  when I took over was  just a copy from those of one of the I.I.Ts with I.I.T. replaced  by N.I.T.

As  REC,  there  were  only one or two research fellowships  available in the engineering departments. With the transformation to N.I.T, the  number  of  fellowships  for research could be increased substantially and any  member  of faculty with PhD could take   two or three  research scholars. As a national institution, it was  necessary to promote research to the  maximum extent possible. As per   government of India  norms, research scholars   in engineering were given liberal  financial support  as scholarship and  lumpsum amount  as  contingency grant every year. For every research scholar, independent doctoral committees were  constituted  to monitor the  progress at least once in a semester and  renewal of  scholarship was  made  subject to satisfactory   progress  in research. As Dean, I used  to attend all the  meetings of the doctoral  committees  of research scholars in each department.