From: banarji@unixg.ubc.ca (Ajai Banarji)
Subject: Should the government subsidize IITs? (Long)
Originator: banarji@unixg.ubc.ca
Organization: University of British Columbia, Vancouver, B.C., Canada
Distribution: na
Date: Tue, 29 Sep 1992 20:53:32 GMT

        	Should the government subsidize IITs etc (long)

  Nice to see the number of responses. I am giving below an article (actually
a letter to editor) which certainly states my points better than I did in my
earlier posting.
  This letter appeared in the Times of India in July 1991. It is written by
one Ajay Chauhan who says that he graduated from IIT Kanpur a few years ago.
However, I feel that the points brought out by him are equally relevant for
MOST people with a proper qualification in engineering or business. Let us
think of the common problems facing qualified people in India rather than
simply criticising the IIT graduates. This letter is also rather instructive
regarding the role of engineers in Indian industry.
  (the letter is abridged slightly).

Dear Sir,
  This letter is with reference to the article by Mr. Amrik Singh who proposed
policy changes to compel IIT graduates to remain in India. There are too many
articles on the subject and it is time things were put in the right 
perspective.
  IITians go abroad not because they are traitors but mostly out of a sense of 
helplessness. They receive an education that is of a very high calibre. Their job options on graduation are:
1) Delay the decision-do management and then sell soap.
2) Resign themselves to just running an existing manufacturing setup and
   degenerate intellectually.
3) Go abroad in search of financial and intellectual gain.
  The first two options are no options at all. An engineer is capable of 
designing systems not just for advanced countries but for Third World countries
also based on requirements. A good engineer however does not run plants.  
Operators should do that.
  Designing systems and doing developmental work requires expenditure and a
direction. This expenditure cannot be met by the government which does not have
the resources and will not be able to give the necessary direction.
  
 (Comment: You may not fully agree with what he has said so far. Please
read on, it becomes more interesting now.)
 
 Now let us consider the "Captains of industry". With such a lot of licensing
in India, with so much control on production, their most important quali-
-fications are the ability to bribe bureaucrats and get government and other
clearances; to find a concern in the west which is manufacturing the same
product, pay it the moon for whatever inferior technology it provides; to
pay engineers and other contractors to put up his plant and bribe monitoring
authorities to look the other way so that he can produce much more than his
declared capacity and sell the excess in the black market, show excess
consumption of raw material (so that the cost of excess material produced
is heavily or totally charged to legitimate production costs) and generally
perform financial jugglery.
  Such a captain of industry can be sure that what he produces will sell as
the government will refuse to grant clearance to fresh investment in that
sector. A few such "captains" will then sit together and manipulate prices to 
their advantage. With no other choice the consumer has to accept his goods
and his prices. Now where does a competent engineer figure in this set up?

(That is a question which I would like Mr Ashish Arora and his friends to
answer.)

  Industry has absolutely no need for developmental work. "Captains" make
their money by bureaucratic patronage not by excelling in technological
ability, by their ability to be brokers and not industrialists. They can thus
make job offers of an equivalent of a few hundred dollars a month to engineers
to run their plants. If any engineer stays back and does such a job for
a significant period of time we have brain flushing rather than brain drain
which brings no benefit to the country.
  Another piece of rhetoric that we hear is our "squandering" of money the
government spends on our education. Let us say the figure is Rs 2 lakh
per student. That is roughly the market price of one tonnes of polyester
filament yarn in India, which sells for around $1800 in the US. Thus, as soon
as a person who leaves India repatriates 1.5 tonnes of PFY (equivalent to
$2700 to him) which the government can sell for Rs 3 lakh, he clears his
debt. Anything above this is a gift of hard currency.
  Secondly, the total expenditure on IIT education is a very small fraction
of the money spent on our monitoring, licensing and control agencies which
only serve the purpose of never allowing a genuinely competitive manufacturing
setup to take birth. The sum is only a small fraction of the money earmarked
for the many Yojanas started to make people stick to farming, handlooms and
similar low-productive work rather than to develop themselves to do more
productive work. (In any case most of this money ends up in the pockets of
politicians and bureaucrats.)
  I would like to state that the average IITian is much more socially
conscious than his counterparts from other colleges. (Really?) We feel
very sad that our country which is individually composed of brilliant people
is collectively degenerating into such a joke. Mr Amrik Singh should have 
advocated a change in the economic structure. Instead he proposes that it
be made mandatory for all students graduating from the IITs that they stay back
for 5 years. May I ask what purpose this will serve?
							AJAY CHAUHAN

  If you had the patience to read up to this point, you may disagree with
some of his opinions but I think that his description of the "average"
Indian industry is very accurate. I also think that we should not be prejudiced
against the writer merely because he is an IITian since most of his points
are equally applicable to ANYONE with a professional degree.
  It appears that this letter was written some time before the economic
reforms of last year were announced. Some of the more foolish distortions like industrial licencing have gone now. It is also true that with the imminent full
convertibility of the rupee the role of NRIs in bringing in foreign exchange
will be less important than it is now. 
  However, we should not lose sight of the fact that the present economic
and social structure of the country (dominated as it is by the neta-babu-bania-
goonda elite) does not have much place for any reasonably competent or 
reasonably honest individual. Will things change? Your guess is as good as
mine.
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