Dedicated to the Service of which Nation? – Letter by IIT alumnus Rahul Banerjee to IIT System

From: Rahul Banerjee rahul.indauri@gmail.com

PhD in Environmental Planning And Management from CEPT University
Distinguished Alumnus Awardee of IIT Kharagpur
Social Activist and Development Practitioner

Date: Thu 29 Feb, 2024, 11:29

Subject: Re: Extraordinary Emergency Meeting at 4pm on Tue 27 Feb ’24 at IIT Bombay Director Office: Challenges & Opportunities for IIT Bombay (contd)

Dear Chandra Vikash,

Thank you for your mail. Our Alma Mater, IIT Kharagpur, had the tagline – “Dedicated to the Service of the Nation”. However, the question is which nation because India is a highly inequitous one.

The latest data from the Income Tax department shows that there are only 20 million people with annual incomes above Rs 5 lakhs and 75 million with annual incomes above Rs 2.5 lakhs. Assuming that each of these tax return filers represents one household and that each household has 5 members it means that the proportion of households with annual income above Rs five lakhs is 10020/1400/5= 7.8% and the proportion of households with income above Rs 2.5 lakhs is 10075/1400/5= 26.8%. Actually quite a few households among these are double income ones and so these proportions are likely to be less.

Thus, we can conservatively conclude, 75% of households in this country are surviving on an income of Rs 685 per day or less or a per capita income of Rs 137 per day or less. This is a very sad state of affairs and it is this vast underprivileged section of the nation that the IITs need to prioritise in their service. Unfortunately, this is not happening currently because in their rush to compete with the universities of the West in cutting edge technologies, the IITs are paying minimal attention to the technologies needed not only for those living on the edge of survival but for the survival of humanity as a whole, seriously threatened as we are by climate change.

These survival edge technologies are simple and time tested – communitarian ecosystem restoration, sustainable agriculture, distributed generation of renewable energy through biogas, solar, wind and gasification of agri and forest biomass, water harvesting and recharge and used water treatment and restoration. The crucial factor in all these is the conscious participation of the community, both men and women equally, in accordance with the subsidiarity principle, which states that work that can be done at the local level should be planned and implemented by the community and not directed remotely by centralised authorities.

Rahul’s story recently featured in Episode 4 of Love Storiyaan on Amazon Prime

There are many organisations in the non profit sector which are doing this with aplomb including ours but the IITs have little connect with them. While most of these organisations are poorly funded and so are operating at a minimal level, the IITs comparatively have more funds. My interactions with IIT academics have revealed that the funds they have are inadequate to pursue research in cutting edge technologies as compared to universities in the west but since survival edge technologies need much less funds, they can gainfully work on these and produce results that will not only benefit the nation but the whole of humanity by effectively combating climate change.
Chandra Vikash has made many efforts to get the IITs and other institutions including our Alma Mater IIT Kharagpur to work on his circular economy and grassroots governance model but with little success. I hope this latest attempt of his to bring IIT Bombay on board for implementing his circular and down to earth LACE-GAIA model will meet with more success.

Regards
Rahul Banerjee
PhD in Environmental Planning And Management from CEPT University
Distinguished Alumnus Awardee of IIT Kharagpur
Social Activist and Development Practitioner

https://www.rahulbanerjeeactivist.in

Addressed to: To: Chandra Vikash I GAIA Earth Sansad gaiasansad@gmail.com
Cc: director@iitb.ac.in, secy.dhe@nic.in, nv.vargh@gmail.com, Director director@iitkgp.ac.in, director@iitm.ac.in, director@iitk.ac.in, director@admin.iitd.ac.in, pro@iitb.ac.in, Office Dean Academic dean.ap.office@iitb.ac.in, dean.ap@iitb.ac, Shishir K. Jha skjha@iitb.ac.in, Soumen Chakrabarti soumen@cse.iitb.ac.in, Anirudha Joshi head.idc@iitb.ac.in, truptimishra@iitb.ac.in, Supratik Chakraborty supratik@cse.iitb.ac.in, sbagnihotri@iitb.ac.in, Prof. B.K. Chakravarthy chakku@iitb.ac.in, N C Narayanan ncn@iitb.ac.in, sharmamachineries@gmail.com, altbach@bc.edu