TSA: What is the purpose behind you contesting for the position of the Vice President of the Technology Students Gymkhana? And if you could elaborate a little on the experiences which led you to contest for this position.
Devansh: I believe my primary motivation to contest for the post of Vice President of the Technology Students Gymkhana is to empower the student body at IIT Kharagpur. And I believe that from my previous experiences, this has been my commitment towards a community-driven mindset as well as the work that I have done at Feeding India by Zomato.
This fostered my belief to work more for the student body and for the children of our country. And hence, seeing different aspects of our campus, I have figured out that this gives me personal satisfaction by helping the other students. And I believe that there is an urgent need to address various issues related to academic, extracurricular, or be it placement, or internships. And I’m motivated to help every student to foster their belief in campus as well as to improve their life.
TSA: Any particular instances that you would want to elaborate on which inculcated this sense of responsibility in you?
Devansh: Right. So one particular instance that I want to highlight here is during my work at Feeding India by Zomato. I believe at those times when I was deeply rooted towards the ground-level problems, I was exposed to the problem of malnourishment in the country. This was the first time when I was exposed, not only to the corporate sector but to some ground-level problems, which requires skills like where basic communication skills are required. Basic humility is required to deal with the students, and people. This fostered my belief that if I am able to deliver these time-sensitive things as my role was major, towards devising strategies for malnourishment, malnourished children, how we can cope up with this issue and how we can improve their lives.
So these experiences have given me a lot of skill sets in terms of how I can think in time-sensitive situations that are critical towards the general people.I believe that this was a particular instance that motivated me to continue this for the student body and there are other instances related to my personal life, before IIT Kharagpur, in IIT Kharagpur that has personally shaped this motivation.
TSA: I believe you must have gone through the proposals of the other candidates as well. So what do you think sets you apart from them?
Devansh: Firstly, in terms of proposals, I believe every candidate puts their best efforts into identifying the problems and addressing them to the best of their capabilities. But it is also necessary to understand that every problem could not be covered in the proposals itself and it is very good to see when I see some similar proposals in all three of the candidates as it gives us this belief that yes, there are prevalent problems inside the campus and it is being addressed by every candidate, irrespective of whatever background they come from. So talking about what sets me apart is my personal belief and my vision that I care for the institute. My proposals are also centric in a way that I can include the institute progress, which is already out there. So it might be possible that I have not been able to include a lot of problems in my proposals. But, the facets that I have covered, I believe those are a few things that need to be addressed right now in the current situation.
As this thing is dynamic and we should not be dependent on one particular instance, I believe the proposal regarding the Entrepreneurship Endowment Fund is the need of the hour.
There are a lot of campus enthusiasts who want this kind of funds and other IITs, for example, IIT Delhi is doing a lot in this space. So I want to establish similar steps at IIT Kharagpur and want to see our students doing the same.
The other proposals which I have put it on are regarding the PG and RS students. I believe that we can discuss this more in detail, but the basic need is to enhance their life at IIT Kharagpur. If they are facing any problem from their supervisors, it needs to be addressed. Someone needs to go ahead and establish some kind of foundation. Some mechanisms, some standard operating procedures where the students are also getting a say to put forward in front of their professors.
In terms of my proposal regarding the sewer maintenance and the pipeline replacement thing, I believe it is also the need of the hour as currently a lot of places are being hindered just because of proper water management. I believe it requires a lot of discussion to get to know the problem itself. So if you allow me, then I can do it right now or in a separate meeting.
TSA: In your proposals, we don’t specifically see any proposals catering to the mental health of the students. And we have so many cases on campus which attest to the poor state of health. Besides that, I don’t see any proposals, which address the needs of women in general or the students who lie on the LGBTQIA+ spectrum. So do you think these problems aren’t important enough? And if so, and if not, how did you come down to what proposals you wanted to address? And how did you cut on these specific problems?
Devansh: Totally fair point. I believe every problem related to mental health or any women-centric problems or problems related to the LGBTQIA+ community are sensitive and they need to be addressed. But as I already said it is not possible to put everything in the proposals. We have to somehow come down to a set of proposals which I am going to propose. And when I started, I talked to multiple stakeholders. I got to know that there are already advancements in terms of what new things that we can do. If you talk about the sanitary dispenser machines or the incinerators, they’re already in the loop. They’re already in the phase where they will be administered in a few months or the other.
So these proposals are already going on and the work has been started in phase one, phase two. And they will, they are in just the implementation phase. So that’s why I went in particular to talk about the work. And then I also talked about the women-centric proposal.
I dropped out of that proposal as I got to know that it has already been started. Right. When I talk about the proposals for the counselling centre, it’s not like I don’t see any problem with that.
But the thing is that those problems require much more centric views where the stakeholders are also important. And just putting up proposals to increase the number of counsellors will not solve the issue.
But, rather it should be taken care of how new awareness programs that we can interact with. Reduce in terms of counselling or beat for the counselling centre.
So, my personal opinions are aligned with addressing these problems. But as I mentioned it is not possible for me to cater everything in the proposals. Hence, there should be some point where I have to come down to some other proposals.
TSA: You said that mental health is a very important issue. How did you measure it in terms of priority when you let’s say, consider the entrepreneurship endowment fund? What were your criterias when you compared these two and you decided to put forward and work on the entrepreneurship endowment fund instead of something like the mental health scenario?
Devansh: I believe there should not be any criteria to compare mental health with anything irrespective of entrepreneurship or be it any other proposal. I believe it should be more in a sense of what improvements I can make if elected in my tenure. And it does not necessarily need to be dependent on just the proposals. It should be seen from the vision and the ideas that I carry for the Institute. And I believe that there is no particular point not mentioning this in the proposal. It is just that I believe that those problems could be catered to on my level if being elected. And if we are raising these issues additionally, then it could also impact the student community much more holistically.
So this is the only reason why there is no comparison between mental health and any other proposal. Mental health is superior, part of every student’s life. And I also cater to that in the same way.
TSA: So let’s just come down to your proposal now. Starting with the entrepreneurship endowment fund. Do you want to briefly state what the proposal is about?
Devansh: Sure. So, the entrepreneurship endowment fund will be primarily a fund that would be provided by our alumni. The main motive is to promote innovation and entrepreneurship among the IIT Kharagpur students. The basic things that we will be covering in this proposal would be the funding opportunities, incubation services, and other industry collaborations or partnerships that could be taken care of by the alumni who are coming on board. And the committee that is responsible for the investments.
So these are major facets of the entrepreneurship endowment fund. If you have any specific questions to put forward, please let me know.
TSA: Yeah. So I’ll just quote something that you’ve mentioned in your proposals. So you say that this fund would help startups access services like CRM, analytics, wireframing, web app development, payment gateways, etc. through partnerships with third-party companies. So what is your take on the fact that you’ll be outsourcing these services in the context of a technology-based institute? And does that in any way sound fair to you? Don’t you think this could have been an opportunity to engage the campus students, and the campus alumni? And would it not have been helpful? And how did you not just consider that? Because I do not see any mention of involving students in this particular part, even though we are a tech-focused institute.
Devansh: The companies or the services that I mentioned are the daily-to-use tools for any startup, right? The CRM services, the WhatsApp services, or any other services. All these services are very essential for the startup on a daily basis. I believe that we are in a technical institute and this should be promoted among the students that they are themselves being involved in such activities and coming up with the solutions rather than taking any third-party solution, right?
But if you look at our institute itself, Helter is a SaaS platform that provides WhatsApp marketing services. So I would never mention that we will not cater to those as well.
We will surely first-hand, ask them for these services. It is a very great collaboration between the students of IIT Kharagpur if they are getting these services from their alumni. This is just a way to extend these services at times when it is very essential for a startup, but they do not have funds. They do not have the right resources to cater to. Let’s say we are talking about CRM services, the UDO provides a lot of CRM services, but it is not open to all.
If we are doing this from an institute collaborating on the educational plans, it is much cheaper and it is much more economical for us as well. So it is not only for us.
It is also on the basis that I am refusing the fact that we are a technological institute and it should not be promoted among the students. It is just an additional help to the startups in their initial phase.
And if it is always on a voluntary basis, all the startups, and all the students who are already working in this domain will be promoted and will be called out for these services.
So I think this is a collaborative effort where we also want to increase students being involved in these services, creating more of these services if they can do it themselves. But at the same time, it is a collaborative effort. But at the same time, also getting help from third-party services.
TSA: Okay, another thing from the same proposal itself. You have mentioned basic financial and legal due diligence will be done by the committee using its teams and third-party providers. And what does your screening committee exactly consist of if you could just talk about that?
Devansh: So if you compare any of the venture capital firms where the due diligence is involved or any of the private equity firms for that matter, the basic due diligence is done by the investment partners or the venture partners. I believe establishing the same would be difficult in an institute because we have to cater to professors, students, and alumni as well.
So the board will primarily consist of the alumni contributing to the fund because their say is also important. They are contributing to the fund.
Then there will be the chairman, there will be the head of Rajendra Mishra School of Engineering Entrepreneurship as the entrepreneurship promoting body, which is officially from the institute side should be there.
The dean of research and development should be there. Apart from this, representatives from the entrepreneurial promoting bodies. It could be any of the incubators inside the campus and it could be the entrepreneurship side at IIT Kharagpur.
So these major stakeholders will be there. Now talking about the due diligence part. I believe this is the most crucial phase where we want the help from third-party stakeholders that I mentioned. And it will not be someone who is outside the world. They will be primarily our alumni involved in any of the venture capital firms. So if you talk about Nexus Fund. We have a lot of venture partners. We have a lot of alumni there. Apart from this, every firm contains someone from IIT Kharagpur. I have personally talked to tens of alumni who want to be involved in this due diligence process. So there are two aspects to it.
Whenever there is someone from the VC firm who is coming to the institute just for doing the due diligence someone from the student side is also involved here. They will get a connection. They will understand how they can do the due diligence. And it is a very good skill to have in college. And trust me, the venture capital firms do require experience of at least two to three years. But just by introducing the entrepreneurship endowment fund, we are not only providing funds to the startups, but we are also empowering our student body to be encouraged in the venture capital ecosystem.
TSA:. So I see you mentioned legal aid here. But I don’t see anything specific catering to it. Taking into account that we have an intellectual property school on campus. And I do not see anybody from that particular school, the head of that school, or some professor from there on the screening committee that you talked about. How do you think it fits into the picture?
Devansh: So primarily, as I talked about in the due diligence process, the legal advisory services are not in the first phase because the startups whom we would be catering to would not be as mature enough as we are thinking. So it would not be like funding Zomato or any big company Ola for that matter. It is funding a company that is in the very initial phase. Or some of the alumni companies who could be in their very seed funding rounds or their series A rounds. I believe those companies in the initial phase do not require that much legal support. But I believe that is a good suggestion to include in the longer term if we are having such kind of matured startups. I do believe that it is a very good idea. But for the initial purposes, I think companies like Startup Lab who are providing very primary services regarding the advisory will be sufficient. So we do not want to increase the length of the committee just because of that. Just because of the stakeholders that are there. There should be someone who is doing something in the committee. So, that is just my point of view in this regard.
TSA: Moving on to another thing within the same proposal, so you have talked about waiving bachelor thesis project requirements for students involved in the founding team of the approved startups.
And enabling them to earn BTP or MTP credits by presenting their startup progress and their contributions to it. So whenever you earn a degree, what according to you is it on the basis of? Is it on the basis of the knowledge you acquire or is it just on the basis of your experience?
Devansh: See, this is again a subjective topic that we are discussing.
I believe attaining a degree is a completely separate topic from what I was mentioning. So this policy is already out there. This is not something that is very new. The policy is currently that if a student is pursuing any startup or entrepreneurial idea, they can go outside the college they can pursue if you have heard about the deferred placement thing. I think it is something similar to that only.
But providing the BTP and MTP startups if you talk about Helter, Prashant is also doing BTP and MTP under their professor.
So it is just extending the same thing to these startups who would be coming under this fund. So it is not like we are restricting these startups from that aspect. It is just including and extending our support to these startups as well that they are founding teams. So that the founding team would also get the BTP or MTP credits.
TSA: So just to confirm, you said Prashant is doing his master’s thesis project, and like Helter is his master’s thesis project.
Devansh: So we should not discuss that completely in this regard. But there are students who are doing their master’s or bachelor’s thesis project. You can go and confirm with Professor Gvasav Chakraborty.
When I talked regarding BTP or MTP projects, he mentioned that if the student has any fair idea, if they have proper justifications for their startup ideas.
Yes, we do provide them and we can provide them with the BTP or master’s project. I am even doing a project that is also based on a venture idea.
It need not necessarily be a startup idea. But I am also building a product out of whatever I got in tomorrow’s lab competition. So it is a product based on cold storage solutions.
And I have taken permission from Professor Pranav Kumardhan. So, he is supporting me in building that product. He will also help me in the business. So these things are just the extension that if the student has this clarity, if they are pursuing any startup idea, they will get the credits easily. Then I think it will promote at least the students to be involved in that. So it is just that. Just to mention a master’s thesis project, you have to mandatorily do it in the department.
TSA: So, a person can only pursue an idea of this sort if they are pursuing a master’s at the Rajendra Mishra School of Engineering. So if a student has done a startup and you have mentioned specifically that you will work on waiving off the MTP credits as well.
How does it make sense in the regard that a master’s thesis project is a major component, a major chunk of your master’s degree itself? And how the institute, let’s say there is a person, there is a student who is pursuing his master’s in the department of mechanical engineering for say. So how will the institute actually validate his degree of being a master of master’s in mechanical engineering? If for his master’s thesis project, what he has done is a startup?
Devansh: I believe that the mentioning of the sentence is like the BTP and MTP credits would be, , waived off. I believe the complete proposal or the complete plan of action is not written in the proposal. This should be discussed properly with the stakeholders. What I want to mention here is the bachelor’s thesis project is the first step when the students pursue their entrepreneurial ideas. And based on the process and the performance that they are having in any of the ideas should be first judged. And then the decision of their master’s thesis project should be taken. I think this detail is not mentioned because we have to also take care of the limitations on the number of phases, I believe.
But what I think is that these master’s thesis projects would also serve their department as well. But we have to set up some procedure where the startup thing should also be taken care of. So it need not be necessary that all of them should be taken care of. All the credits should be given to the startup itself. But there should be some consideration of waiving off some credits of the master’s thesis project.
So if I talk about my mathematics department, I have to take, , if I am taking the bachelor’s thesis project in some other department, then there should be some supervisor from the mathematics department as well Whereas this rule is not there for other departments, but it is there for my department. Doing anything outside of my department requires some professors from my department. So now the rule here is that my professor would review the project.
And I would also review the performance and whatever work I am doing. If they are not satisfied, they can always ask me questions. But if I am doing something on a project and I have the justification for it, I think they will believe that this process has been going on for years as well.
So there will not be many issues. Again, I believe that the department is very important for a student where they are pursuing the degree.
And the courses or the professors have a particular say in the master’s thesis project.
TSA:. So you just mentioned and you were talking about your particular department. This does not take into consideration many other departments where the rules and regulations are very different. So are there any plans or have you done any work on catering to those as of now?
Devansh: So as of now the primary proposal is to start with the bachelor’s thesis project and the master’s thesis project credits will be waived off in consideration with the department itself.
I believe that all the other departments have different criteria for BTP, and MTP. But generally, the students are allowed to take the projects into other departments as well. If you are applying that same criteria here, then the students could also pursue their entrepreneurial ideas in any of the fields that they want. The proper justifications, and proper documentation are required and they have to submit it.
The professor should review it accordingly. There should be performance reviews on a particular basis, on a particular timeline. So that if the professor is not satisfied with the work, they can always raise it to the student. And the student should also have the timeline to rectify it and submit it again. So I think establishing those SOPs could be helpful here.
TSA: Now coming to your second proposal. You talked about two things in that proposal. The first one is campus safety and the second one is career innovation, basically non-conventional career options. What was your reason behind clubbing these two together?
Because from what I see, these are two very separate issues in terms of the need, the impact, and even the implementation. They are two totally different things. Why did you plan to combine them in the same proposal?
Devansh: So if we see the combination of what I meant to mention from the safety or so first proposal, you can say it is community well-being. Whereas the second proposal is more toward the unconventional career paths that the student could pursue. I think the correlation should not be established in a way that is why I have put them together in the proposal.
The main aim should be what steps that I want to take to solve both of the issues. And to cater to both of the needs. So the aim should be more clear rather than seeing why they are clubbed together. Because every point which is mentioned should be fulfilled. Irrespective of which point it is mentioned first or next. It should not be dependent. The order should not be very dependent. The motivation or the things that I want to do should be more relevant for me. And yeah, I understand your question. I understand your question. So just to answer it more crisply, I believe they are not fully correlated things.
And in a sense, they are not correlated things. But mentioning those together, just because I feel that the community’s well-being and non-conventional things are something which is often looked upon by people. So in those areas, I wanted to club them together. That these two things are often looked upon by the people. If you see both the points, they are not very conventional points. The second point is also an unconventional career method. The first point is also the maintenance system and the pipeline replacement that we wanted to have on the campus. They both are very unconventional things that someone wants to do. So from that perspective, you can say that I have aligned them together.
TSA: You were talking about campus safety. You’ve talked about fire safety and sewerage treatments replacing the pipelines. And I believe there’s been a lot of work that’s been carried out within the previous year itself, right? In the current vice president’s tenure. So how is your proposal any different from it?
Devansh: And yeah, I mean, that’s what I said. So if we start with the open sewer maintenance issue inside the campus, it is prevalent in front of the pan loop.
A lot of halls, if you can just go outside, from this line of LLR, MMM, then if you go to RK and RP as well, the open sewage problem is not just limited to one of the halls of residence. There are a lot of locations. These are a few of the instances that I’ve just mentioned here. And there is no work going on in covering these sewer maintenance issues. And just because of these open sewers, the breeding of mosquitoes is there. There is this foul smell coming out of these and there is an indirect impact on the health of the students. And I believe the cases of malaria dengue are very much prevalent in those times. And the fumigation is also not being ensured. So it is just a way to improve the lives of the students by ensuring that at least the sewer is covered from the basic point of view of our institute.
And talking about the next segment to it, which is the water pipeline replacement. So when I talked to Mr. S. K. Biswas from the civil construction and maintenance section, he mentioned that, yes, there are a lot of problems in terms of the pipelines. As you may have doubts when we are repairing these pipelines, how well the other students will be catered. Once the repair, the maintenance work starts, there could be hindrances for other halls or other students. So the main maintenance part would be going on in the summer or winter breaks. And at those times, students are not very much in number. Again, there are separated pipelines that are spread across the campus. It starts with the southeast campus and it is spread out across the campus. So there is a separate pipeline for Pan Loop.
Then there will be a separate pipeline for LBS, MMM, and those halls. So again, if there is this issue that is particular to one of the areas, then only that area would be hindered. And as we are doing this in summer or winter breaks, then there will not be many students. And to cater that small section of students, there could be water tanks. So this was a very good suggestion given by the stakeholders from CCM itself that this repairment part could be done in those times when the students are not on campus.
TSA: What will be your role in this particular initiative? Because you put it as your proposal. What will be your contribution to it or what has been your contribution to it?
Devansh: If it was already an initiative that was taken up. So the first problem here is the identification of such things.
It is being ignored by the administration or by the section itself. As there has not been any auditing of such a particular issue. The pipelines have been rusted for years. The metallic pipelines are there. So these pipelines are not just tilted and a lot of other things also got poured into these same pipelines. There are a lot of issues with the purity of water.
You can have a lot of cases in different halls of residence of the students facing these problems. So contaminated water is one of the major issues that students might face. And if any student is facing any problem, I believe it comes under the responsibility of a vice president directly or indirectly. And why am I mentioning this and I am putting it forward? Because I want to raise it in a way that there should be some work that should be started in this space. So currently the proposals that are going on in the civil construction and maintenance section are only limited to the pan-loop that has been started. But the work has not started yet. It has only been discussed regarding the budget that would be used and how the implementation would go. But again, the proper auditing of such incidents has not been done. How standard operating procedure has not been established. And what about the students who would be hindered during these processes that have not been taken care of?
So as the role of vice president is very close to the student body, it would be much easier to execute this and to have it more efficiently.
TSA: Okay, so every year we have proposals related to the postgraduate students and the research scholars on campus. What is your take on the proposals that have been put forward before this? And how is your proposal any different from it?
Devansh: So it is one of the major problems. So let me just first talk about the problems of research scholar students. And then we can say that, , what is the condition on the proposals of previous years and my proposals. So the current problems of research scholar students are majorly aligned in these segments. The first facet that it covers is regarding the stipend that they are receiving. So there are a lot of times when there is a delay in their enhancement seminars. And because of this the junior research fellowship is not being promoted to senior research fellowship. And there is this direct impact on the amount of stipend that they get.
So these issues could be because of their performance, bad performance in the work that they are doing. But a lot of times there isn’t this ignorance from, , the other side that they receive. So every time when there is this problem, any of the seminars going on, there should be a proper say for the students in terms of why they have not been promoted. Are there any particular reasons? If the performance is the only issue, then it is fine. It is on the student.
But if there are any other reasons, then it should be at least addressed by their supervisors. So the problem there is regarding a proper transparency between a supervisor and the students.
Again, the supervisor will only have a small number of students, they also get sometimes fair to say things in front of their supervisor so there should be some proper mechanism. It could be an anonymous feedback system. It could be a lot of ideas that we could discuss upon but on similar ideas there had been proposals in the past so if you talk about some of last year’s proposals there was this proposal regarding the review system or you can say the feedback mechanism for research scholar students similar to the BTech or BS undergraduate students but again the problem is not just submitting the feedback the problem is regarding ensuring the timely progress of their academic journey which is a very big issue for postgraduates or particularly for research scholar students, you will find a lot of students completing their PhD degree in 10 years, or 11 years just because their enhancement seminars getting delayed or their synopsis seminars not getting done to cater those needs. What I have proposed is the yearly review of supervisors as well as the research scholars so it will give them a particular platform to discuss their evaluation criterias to discuss regarding any problems if they have mutually and it would not be limited to any of the professors who are not doing promotions of their students it would be a uniform procedure for all the professors so then there comes accountability that every professor will have to give a report on how many numbers of students are getting promoted from JRF to SRF and what is the number of students which are not being promoted. Then this report would provide accountability to the students as well that yes there is someone who is looking into it if their issues are not being addressed then obviously they can raise it to the committee of or the head of the department that I mentioned in the proposal as well if the head of the department is also being involved in some of projects then the Deans could be involved in that. So this is the overall idea that I want to improve on. This it is not just regarding and not limited to the feedback system but it should also be in terms of the review system so there is this thin line between feedback and review
TSA: Another question on the feedback system itself. You mentioned having an anonymous feedback system. So whenever you see a PhD supervisor he or she or they do not have a lot of students working under them right so maintaining the anonymity of the student is quite difficult. So how do you plan to cater to that specifically?
Devansh: So if you see in detail in my proposal, I have never mentioned the anonymous or feedback system. I have only focused on the review system. So this would come from the professor’s side rather than the student’s side. So the students will not be complaining about their professors. We are establishing a procedure where the professors will be asked regarding the performance of their students. And it would be uniform throughout all the departments, and all the professors. Now this ensures the accountability and transparency of the procedure. As the professor now has to submit a report on ERP about their students.
If any professor is just doing this for negligence or ignorance, then these factors could be easily taken care of.
TSA: Okay, so talking about the placement scenario and the previous yours, what is your take on it? And what are the benefits? And how do you plan to change it? Because we see a proposal from your side on CDC optimization.
Devansh:
So I believe the placement procedure at IIT Kharagpur is handling a lot of students. And it is highest in the country where we are not only catering to undergraduate students but also to postgraduate and research scholar students. There has been a temporary shift in the economic downtime where we have seen the smaller number of students getting placed this particular year. The drop down has been very significant and everyone could observe this particularly. But we have to understand the reasons as well. There are a lot of internal as well as external reasons for it. The external reasons could be the lower number of intake of students or the economic downtime. But now what we can do is for internal reasons.
The internal reasons could be anything related to the procedure, the timeline, the structure or be it related to the students. Like what are the skill set of students, and how we can improve on the students.
So I think I am focusing more on how I can add to this in terms of opportunities. So that’s why you can see that the first point mentions the role of the training and placement professor in charge. And how they can include their contacts in the same procedure.
Currently, their meetings are not being ensured on a timely basis. The placement committee team from the student side is not directly involved with the training and placement coordinators. The department representatives’ role would ensure that there is a bridge between the professors in charge of training and placement of each department and the placement committee team, so that the communication channel should be established.
There will be bi-weekly or weekly meetings at the time of nearer to the CDC. Be it in the internship or placement procedure. Now a lot of professors have contacts directly in their projects as well as in general as well. In the industry that they are working in or any of the projects that they are working in. So those contacts could be directly leveraged through this channel. And the department representatives would also get the exposure of CDC. So these department representatives would not only be limited to UG but PG and RS as well. So they will also get exposure to how to deal with these procedures.
TSA: I am presuming you have talked to the current Vice President and the previous Vice President of the technology students Gymkhana.
And both of them had proposals related to optimising the CDC the placement and the internship. So I would like to know from you what you think is the current state of it. How has it been implemented and how do you plan to make it better besides the thing that you have already mentioned about.
Devansh: So I think we are obviously talking about the other two points which are more or less similar to the previous proposals. And I believe that a proposal is not completed until and unless a problem could be mentioned in the proposal until and unless it is not completed. And it should be the responsibility of the students or the candidates that they are raising the issues which are not being completed and how we can work upon it collectively. So this is not something related to the fact that if a problem is mentioned in one of the proposals we can’t raise it again if that is not solved.
TSA: So what is the progress on each of these points?
Devansh : If I talk particularly regarding my point related to the CV portal. The steps that have been taken care of right now are more towards building a separate ecosystem where the complete CDC procedure could be handled by some other platform similar to the ERP portal. But what I am proposing is just limited to the CV portal, where the user friendly CV portal would be there which is integrated with the ERP itself. So now the students will not be creating their CVs on ERP rather than on a third party CV portal, which is also having the similar kind of detailing and all the security checks. It’s just that it would be much easier for the students as it would be user friendly than the ERP system.
But the CVs would indirectly be reflected in the ERP system as well. So this is a completely different pipeline that I am adding it into. And it is not something that we are creating a different CDC portal.
So this is what distinguishes it from the previous proposals. Talking about the third point which is regarding the CDC notification application. I believe it does have similarities with the previous proposals.
But when I discuss this with the Executive officers of CDC or the chief system engineer of ERP. They mentioned that currently there is a need for some career notification platform, where it is solely managed by CDC. So if we can have opinions why we can’t include it in APNA INSTI app or any of the other applications which are already going on in the institute. But when we are talking about CDC, then we have to maintain confidentiality in terms of the companies that they are coming to. Because see why it is handled only by CDC only on ERP and not being mailed to the students. It is very easy to push an email from ERP to the students. And it is informally done through MFTP as well. But it is not official. Because there are a lot of times when the mail is being missed. And then the CDC will not take the responsibility as it is not official.
But if we are creating something directly in consideration with CDC. And the rules and regulations. Then I think it would be much easier for CDC as well as the students to cater to it. So this has already been there in different IITs. Where the students have to just enrol through their roll number and password. As soon as they are getting into it. It will be just serving as a CDC notice board. And all the information, all the push notifications would be there.
It is just that we don’t want our information leaking from IIT Kharagpur and going to other institutes. As this is a very crucial phase for our institute as well.
TSA: So since you have talked to the previous Vice President. Is there some unfinished work which you would like to work on? So are you limited to the proposals? Or are there any?
Devansh: I believe that there are a lot of proposals going on previously where the work has been done in phases. So in a lot of proposals the work has been done in phase 1, phase 2. And obviously there is this need to pick up the same proposals. And it is also not feasible for someone to complete the proposals in the tenure of a Vice President. Sometimes the students do it. But sometimes it is not possible. So surely the proposal regarding the digitalisation of BC Roy is going on. And a lot of work has already been going on in the process.
The module is also functional on the ERP portal. But it is not reflected towards the student yet. I believe firstly I would take up the same proposal and try to finish it. As the digital medical book can be easily implemented once the computers are there in the BC Roy Technology Hospital. So this is one of the proposals where a lot of work has already been done. Apart from this I think the proposals related to the MESS function. Which were very prevalent right now as we see the privatisation of MESS from the Hall Management Centre. But in those regards there is a proper ideation required. As the dynamics have changed a lot from those times. And it should be completely in consideration with the current Senate members.
So I do believe that those proposals should be worked upon right now. But before directly jumping into the work or the phases that they are going on. There should be a discussion with the Senate and include the new things that have been come up with the tenure.
TSA: The life of a Vice President is pretty hectic. And you have to manage a lot of things right. So how do you plan to do that?
Devansh: Right, so I was fortunate enough to be involved in multiple organisations throughout my tenure at IIT Kharagpur. And it is this experience be it from Entrepreneurship Cell, Rajasthan Cultural Association or Kharagpur Quantum Information and Computing Club. So to be able to do academics along with these activities was one of the tougher things that I have felt in the very first of my instances with these organisations. But throughout my time at IIT Kharagpur this is what the institute has offered to us. That is how we can manage time along with other academic attainments, other extracurricular attainments.
I believe I have done a lot of work in the past along with the institute as well as outside campus internships. Which has provided me enough exposure. And belief in myself.
So if I was elected I would be able to pursue the same in terms of Vice President.
TSA: This year has been lined with more students getting into trouble and getting DC charges against them. And in certain cases have been found in possession of intoxicants. So what is your take on it and how do you plan on improving this scenario?
Devansh: Right, I believe that there are already in set policies of the institutes regarding the breach of code of conduct in any of the matters that you have mentioned. But what you have to understand is that
What I can do in this regard is to aware students regarding the repercussions of these intoxicants or different issues related to disciplinary actions. Because the student side is always being ignored in terms of how we are improving their life. I believe that the administration is doing what they feel in regards to the institute rules. But again the student side which is there like how much we are talking about their mental health and how much we are talking about their overall life. Is it improving through these procedures? So I would just like to highlight my views on how we can improve on these aspects. How can we be aware of more students regarding any of such things. And how we can protect our freshly admitted students, first year, second year students from these aspects.
TSA: So there have been accommodation problems in KGP in the recent years and recently two new halls of residence have been inaugurated.
Could you elaborate more on this? How will these problems be addressed?
Devansh: So currently the meetings have been already concluded regarding the redistribution of students in the next academic year.
I believe that with the introduction of two new halls of residence we have a lot of capacity to accommodate the students which are already inside the campus. And been facing problems regarding the accommodation. So there was over burdening of students in the particular room.
I believe that those issues would be sorted out right now.
TSA: But the admissions that have been denied to the students from PhD scholars last year just because of the accommodation issues.
Could it still occur again as the number of halls that have been in consideration from the civil construction and maintenance section have not been completed yet?
Devansh: So there is again a proposal of new halls of residence and would obviously take time to build the infrastructure.
But at least we are fortunate enough that we have two new halls of residence where we can accommodate at least 500 to 1000 more students in the particular scenario. So currently the situation would be improved. And the redistribution has already been done so I cannot comment much on it as it has already been decided.
TSA: I still want you to somehow justify how you can avoid a masters degree to someone who is in mathematics. And by just completing a startup or being involved in a startup. Because that’s completely different. So how did that even come into consideration? I can understand bachelor’s. But Master’s is even a bit more. On Master’s, it still doesn’t make much of an elaboration.
Devansh: So it is not like that the complete credits could be waived off just by doing the startup. There could be procedures in consideration with the professors itself. So again a lot of times it depends on the professor how they want to provide the projects to the students. Or if you are particularly talking about the department of mathematics.
Then we do have the flexibility in terms of choosing the projects inside the department as well. It need not be necessarily related to some abstract mathematics. Or , related to some linear algebra.
They provide us with a wide range of topics which we can pursue. So it’s just that we need to give them a clear idea of what we are trying to do. And what the intent is. Because the professors only require that the student is working on something which is productive. So as soon as we are putting forward these views in front of them.
And the startup proposal is not just limited to the bachelor’s thesis project that I mentioned. It would also go for the master’s thesis project. Because if the student is involved in some of the startups. Then it would be very hard for them to leave it at some point of time. And if we are giving them flexibility from the academic side. Then it gives them a push. So regarding the master’s thesis project, yes we can have the department representatives from the professor side. Who can review the procedures? And if required on a case by case basis. They can give them some additional projects from the department.
But at least this view from the startup would also be considered. And I think it is doable. I have discussed this with my professors as well from the department of mathematics. They have mentioned this clearly, that as far as the student is completely working on something productive and they have complete information and documentation regarding it. Yes, we can provide them with an additional project from our department which could judge their mathematical reasoning and aspects related to the project that they are doing. So it is just an addition and extension of the project that the professor has to assign to a student.
TSA: There is nothing more. You could share your parting words with a message to KGP Janta.
Devansh: So I believe I just have one message for the students of IIT Kharagpur. Just because the elections are going on. Please have a look at the proposals. Please have a thorough read of all the proposals. It should not necessarily be what pointers that candidate wants to mention. We have to see what vision the proposals carry.
And the problems that are being covered in a proposal could not be limited to the problems of IIT Kharagpur. And there have always been restrictions and in terms of what things that we can put forward in a proposal. So it should be judged on in a holistic way. And at the end the campus should be the first priority. And what improvements that we can do for the campus should be the foremost priority.
The collective decisions could only change the institute policies. And no individual could have the say. Everyone has to come together and make changes. So this is my only urge and request to all the students that please know and judge your candidate wisely. And always enjoy the KGP life. It’s a one time experience.
Do as much as things you can do in the tenure at IIT Kharagpur.
So thank you for giving me this opportunity for an interview.