Lieutenant Governor of Puducherry Kiran Bedi urged IIT alumni to make a commitment to contribute back to their institute.
“Every passing out student should commit to contribute back to the IIT as a contract.
The IITs and medical colleges are heavily subsidised, and it is only fair that students contribute back to the institute.
“If this had been done from the very first batch, IITs will have a corpus rivalling the MITs,” she said speaking at the conclave titled ‘Sangam – Confluence for Impact’ organised by The IIT Madras Alumni Association (IITMAA) to mark the diamond jubilee year of IIT-M.
Dr. Bedi said students should commit 0.5% of their salary from the day they start earning to give back to the institute and the corpus could be managed by the alumni associations with donors having a say.
Delivering a video message on the occasion, Professor Bhaskar Ramamurthi, Director IIT Madras, said, “This is a great year for us. This is the first big event being held to mark the diamond jubilee year. We have stood on the shoulders on the pioneering batches of students, faculty and alumni and have taken it to where it is today.”
“The association represents over 50,000 alumni across 28 countries and 1,700 cities. We are entering our 55th year. We have heard from our alumni that they want to re-connect with the institute, faculty and students and they want to give back to the institute and society for all the things they have benefited from,” said Shuba Kumar, president, IITMAA.
Anand Rangarajan, engineering director, Google; former Indian cricketer Anil Kumble; actor Rana Daggubati; Dr. Nachiket Mor, country director, Gates Foundation and Preetha Reddy, vice chairperson, Apollo Hospitals were the key speakers at the conclave.