The Campaign:
Current VP Shubham Matah‘s campaign proposals were:
- Formation of the “Alternate Careers Group” under the TSG in order to provide students with information about alternate career paths.
- Introduce changes to improve the placements in IIT Kharagpur
- Provide additional infrastructure to student groups for conducting meetings.
- Tie-up with Big Bazaar for home delivery of merchandise at discounted prices via tele-shopping.
- Get Sponsored Industrial B.Tech and M.Tech projects for students
His opponent in the race was Digvijay Gagneja and these were his proposals:
- Establishment of a body for student’s welfare with 3 major objectives:
a) To establish a centralised mechanism for providing students an opportunity to work under professors in their projects during summer and winter breaks.
b) Providing a stipend for such students.
c) Formalising a training procedure for final placements by means of GDs, Assessment Tests and Interviews.
- Collaboration with NGOs to educate students and provide internship opportunities
- Introduction of Department Representatives in the Traninig and Placement Committee to make the placement process more effective and penetrative. (Proposal clarified by candidate)
- Streaming of news channels on the LA
Follow Ups:
We caught up with the current VP Gymkhana September 5th 2009 to see how far he had come with his proposals and we got that and and a lot, lot more. Here are some of the highlights of that interview (original post):
Shubham on his initial Proposals
1. Alternative careers group: There has been considerable progress in the following two areas:
a) Finance Cell: A student body responsible for spreading awareness of career avenues in finance (CFA etc) has seen been set up in the campus. (However, The Scholars’ Avenue is not aware of any activities by the Finance cell so far. If any reader has benefited from the above cell, please get in touch with us.)
b) Communiqué Expansion: Communiqué has expanded its scope substantially to include preparation techniques, vital tips and requisite information for cracking less yearned examinations like CFA and FRM. (Again, if a reader has attended any sessions organized by Communique for CFA and FRM, we would like to know.)
2. Placement Scenario
a) Department Representatives: Student representatives have already been appointed by the department T&P in charge to do basic research on companies that could come for placements. However, they will currently not be allowed to contact the companies directly but will rather have to hand over their research results and relevant information to the placement committee for further processes.
b) Final Year Placements: Better, extensive and in depth information of the records of students being collected. This is expected to be of great help for students who are interested in PSUs as they are particularly interested in this kind of data.
Profile Pages for each student under the IIT KGP domain being set up.
There are plans to conduct mock test sessions in October.
For the first time, two PG students have been made part of the placement committee and the step has been quite successful.(See comment on this post) [Edit: We had earlier incorrectly reported "For the first time, PG students have..." that had caused some confusion; Mr. Matah has since clarified this point to us]
3. Infrastructure for Societies
An earlier plan to utilize the CTS building had to be shelved as the place was taken up by the counselling cell. Currently, search for appropriate location is going on.
4. Tie-up with Big Bazaar
This initiative is primarily for expediting home delivery of merchandise at discounted prices via tele-shopping. However, this is not of very high priority and is not expected any time soon.
5. Sponsored Industrial B.Tech and M.Tech projects for students
The entire project has been scrapped after being declared unviable.
And there were some of the other things that he was working on:
1. Gymkhana website : Gymkhana website slated for a massive overhaul. It will be made more interactive with polls, GC updates, online forms and lots more. (The Gymkhana website has remained inactive for the better part of this semester.)
2. Counseling Center: Mental health professional has already been hired. The plan is to train student coordinators to spot potentially suicidal students and later train them into student counselors.
3. DELL Laptop chaos rectification: After extensive negotiations, DELL has finally agreed to come to Kharagpur and host a ’service camp’ where they will offer laptop service at much cheaper rates.
4. Institutional Foreign exchange Deal: The initial plan is to facilitate and promote exchange programs in order increase exposure and interaction as well as a provision for students to go abroad at lower rates.
5. SPICMACAY: KGP chapter revived after a long gap and hence the organization of the Pt. Hariprasad concert
6. Netaji Auditorium Sound System: Set to receive a major revamp.
7. Institute ERP System: This is expected to be up by the middle of the spring semester. Student relevant modules have been proposed including an extensive hall specific module. However, this is still in the initial stage and it requires extensive data collection and is not expected soon. Also proposed are a Library module, a Gymkhana module and modules for specific societies. This project is separate from the Combo Card project which has run into rough waters. It’s at a stand-still at the moment primarily because of some negligence on the administration’s part
In the light of the placement season, on the 5th of November, we once again interviewed the incumbent VP to get an update about how his proposed improvement of the TnP system was going and we published this report in our Sep 12th Issue.
One of the most promising measures that he had set out to accomplish was the mock GD/PI sessions for all the students who registered for placements, which was supposed to have happened in mid-October according to his estimation during our last interview. Unfortunately, he informs us that this will not be happening this time around due to insufficient funds. The amount allocated to this project by the Registrar was a mere 1/4th of what was needed. In place of what would have been an extremely beneficial one-on-one session with professionals, final year students will have to do with just a seminar that is slated to happen sometime during November. Also meeting with delays was the plan to have student profile pages hosted on the IIT-KGP site. This project has been taken up by the Dean of Co-ordination and Planning and is likely to be completed this time next year. On a happier note, one of the measures that was taken by the VP in relation to placements did bear fruit, namely the appointment of department representatives. According to him, it has been “100% effective” in getting new companies for placements.
