IIT-Bombay gets record Rs 25 crore pledge from 1993 batch

The 1993 batch of the Indian Institute of Technology Bombay (IIT-B) has pledged Rs 25 crore, the highest ever, for the betterment of the institute. Every year, batches celebrating their silver jubilee of graduation raise funds for the institute under a ‘legacy project’. Last year, the 1992 batch had pledged Rs 9.4 crore.

During the Alumni Day celebration on Sunday, the 1993 batch students announced the funds for a number of projects largely related to student well-being, including scholarship programmes, upgrade of study facilities in hostels, efforts for student counselling. While some are one-time payments, others are linked to projects, and funds will be released when certain milestones are reached. Out of the 850 students in the batch, nearly 140 have pledged funds.

Balaji Srinivasan, an alumnus who was part of organizing the reunion committee, said, “We have got a lot from the institute and it is our time to give back. We reached to our batchmates and individually connected to them, triggering memories and their time at the institute. Most of the members feel that the quality of education that we received must not be out of reach for anyone, and hence the focus on scholarships.”

The highest contribution of Rs 10 crore came from Abhay Pandey, General Partner at A91 Partners. The fund will be used for expansion of the economics and humanities programmes at the institute.

Organisers said several industry leaders such as Jagdish Moorjani, co-founder and COO of CitiusTech; Ashwin Rao, vice president at Minneapolis-based Target and Adjunct Faculty at Stanford University; and Harmit Malik, biologist at Fred Hutchinson Cancer Research Center have also pledged. “People don’t contribute when they are not aligned to the cause but we appealed to the batch and got them to speak with the beneficiaries of the scholarships which made them realise the importance of the funds. We will continue to reach out to more members and hope to raise more than what is currently pledged,” said Sudhir Nikam, an alumnus and member of the core organizing committee.

Distinguished Service Awards were bestowed on three alumni — DC Agrawal (batch of 1969), Dr Rajkumar P Singh (1975), and G Ravishankar (1990) — for their notable and sustained contribution to the progress of the institute.

The Chapter Service Awards were conferred on R Srinivasan (1973), Sanjiv Sood (1983), Deepam Morparia (1985), Nitesh Dixt (2003), Sanjay Bhandari (2004) and Santosh Bhoosthali (2007). Class of 1998 too pledged Rs. 1.6 crore this year.