2                                                                                                                                                           BLUEPRINT: Newsletter of Civil Engineering Department, IIT Bombay

We cordially thanks Prof. K.V. Krishna Rao (HOD, Department of 

Civil  Engineering,  IIT  Bombay) and Prof.  P.  Vedagiri  (Faculty 

Advisor,  CEA­ IIT  Bombay)  for  supporting  and  encouraging  our 

endeavor every single time.

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Why should we hire you? As soon as we hear 

this  question,  we truly understand that 

Placement  Season  is  here.  After  passing 

through numerous mazes  of  ever­increasing

difficulty, the  lucky  ones  get to  leave  the 

hallowed portals of IIT Bombay with a smile on

their faces. Few pass the infamous Placement 

Season unscathed, but most have something to 

show  for  their  scars,  for  they  have  emerged

from the battlefield with the most coveted of

accomplishments: a job. 

This year too was no different. With a steady 

increase in the  number of  students in  each 

batch, placements have become tougher. 

More  competition, limited companies! 

However, all that the  media  reports  is  “IITB

Civil  Dept. 39th in QS World  Rankings”  and 

“Crore­plus  packages  make  a  comeback  at

IITs”.  Such  biased  reporting  gives  rise  to

unrealistic  expectations  and  heartbreaks. We 

present to you a peek behind the curtain with

the  actual story  of  what  happened  at

placements 2013.

This  year  marked a  new  high for  the  Civil 

Engineering Dept. of IIT Bombay, as we ranked

just behind Computer Science and Engineering 

(CSE)  in the number of offers received. While

looking at the placement data for the last five

years, the number of unplaced people has gone 

up,  but  so has the  strength  of  each  batch. 

However, the percentage of registered B.Tech

students who have been placed remained 69%,

showing no change from 2012.

The  M.Tech  batch  was almost  neck­to­neck

with the B.Techs, while the Dual Degree batch 

showed  an  astounding placement rate  of

76.5%.  The  PhD  placement  rate was 50%, as 

the  others  decided  to  pursue  post­doctoral

studies abroad.

A quick survey of the students revealed that for 

most people, CPI remains THE most important 

factor  for placements. The  fact  that 89% of 

B.Techs placed had a CPI that was greater than

7.0  further  emphasized this point. 

Communication  skills, extra­curricular 

activities  and  interest  in the  job  profile  are 

other  factors  which  will definitely  come  in

handy. 

Coming to the  different  sectors, the percentage  of  those  who opted for  CoreEngineering & Technology Profile jobs showed a significant jump from 9.4% to an encouraging 28.2%.  Analytics,  Software, Finance  and Consulting profiles were not lagging far behind.Overall, it was a very good season with the CivilDept.  being  one  of  the  only ones  to  have  a near­equitable  distribution  among the different sectors.Another new record was set this year, with 4students  getting  PPOs  from  Deutsche  Bank(DB),  Schlumberger,  Housing.com  andZlemma.com.        A  long  conversation  with  the  DepartmentPlacement Coordinator (DPC) led us to discoverseveral  things which  students  often miss out on.  The  basics  of  the  courses  should  be absolutely clear, for which the Dept. organizes refresher lectures, in which professors quickly give an overview of the whole course content. Special emphasis  should be made  to  improve communication  skills, as  even the most talented companies fail if there is no teamwork and  internal  bonding.  Several  alumni  and eminent  personalities  from  each  sector  have been  invited to  give  talks  so that  all  doubtsabout  placements can be  sorted out.  TheStudent Alumni Relations  Cell (SARC) hasinitiated a  new  program  “Speed Mentoring”, where you can clear all your doubts regarding a particular sector by talking over Skype to analumnus currently employed in that field.Ultimately,  when  it  comes  to  the  placementday, it  all boils  down  to  how well  you  have prepared yourself and your resume. We hopethat we have been able  to quell  your  doubts regarding the placement scenario of  the Civil Engineering Department, IIT Bombay

0%

20%

40%

60%

80%

100%

B.Tech M.Tech M.Tech+ PhD

DualDegree

PhD

% placed out of registered students

3% 8%

51%

27%

11%

Placed B.Tech CPI Distribution

< 6.0

6.0 ­ 7.0

7.0 ­ 8.0

8.0 ­ 9.0

> 9.0

20

1115

12

10 1

Placement SectorsCoreFinanceAnalyticsSoftwareConsultingEducation

Content...� Placements @ Civil : The

Inside Story� Interview: A talk with Prof.

Tarun Kant� Interview: Prof. Nagendra

Rao Velaga: A Rise againstthe Odds!!

� Infra-development and Curriculum Update

� Learn from the ACHIEVERS

� Solar Decathlon,2014- Team Shunya

� Only @ Civil, IIT B� AAKAAR-2014� Department Hulchul� Sentience

Editorial Board

Editors

Abhideep SahuRounaq Basu

Aakanksha Uday

Articles

Dhawal Desai Venkatesh Pandey Prateek Deogekar Amar Sinha

Design & Outline

Abhideep Sahu Kshitij Maheshwari

Special thanks to:

Saurav Jain

Placements @ Civil : The Inside Story� Rounaq Basu

0

100

200

78 97 119 103 11520

1520 35

56

Annual Variation in Civil Placements

Number ofpeople notplaced

Number ofpeople placed

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Professor  Tarun Kant is  the senior most 

faculty member at  Department  of Civil

Engineering, IIT Bombay. He is the receiver of 

the prestigious  Nehru  Fellowship,  the IIT

Bombay Lifetime Achievement Award and the

only civil engineer to get nominated in all the

premier science academies of India. Professor

Kant has  served  as the  Head  of the 

Department  of Civil Engineering and  is

currently  the  Institute  chair professor and 

convener  of INSA.  He  has also  taught  in

Cambridge University and University  of 

California and University  of Wales,  Swansea

as  a guest  faculty.  Apart  from the academic 

activities he has also worked as the Dean­IPS

and  is also  the founding  member of  the

Faculty Forum, IIT Bombay. Despite  of

excelling in variant fields  over the past  40

years, he still continues to work for the cause

of  civil  engineering  and  to  promote it  to  its 

very best  level. A very lively and  generous

person by his nature, Professor Tarun Kant sir

shares his life experience with us….

We have noticed a peculiar thing about you.

You did B.Sc.  prior to your  B.Tech.  in  civil 

engineering. So was there any specific reason

or  instance that made you to go for another

graduation despite  of  already  being  a

graduate?

No, I always wanted to be an engineer and the 

reason I went for B.Sc. was because I was not

eligible for  a  four  year  or  a  five  year 

engineering program because of the minimum

age requirement for them which was 16 years. 

Actually I completed my schooling very early, I

think I was 13 at that time and then to fill this

gap of three years,  I opted  for B.Sc. which at

that time had no such minimum age criterion.

B.Sc.  at the  age  of  sixteen! Well that’s 

something a child prodigy case. Now coming 

to the later time to 1966 when you completed 

your  B.Tech.  ,  there  must  be  a  lot  of  other 

career  opportunities  in  civil  engineering  as  

the  time  was  just within a  20  years  span of

post­independence  then how  did you found

yourself in the shoes of a professor??

(With a sound laugh he stated…) well first of 

all  I wasn’t a case of any child prodigy. It  just

happened. Secondly, in my list I always had job 

at the first place and being the eldest son that 

was the requirement of my family too but that

period was a hard time for all as we all were

facing recession  at  that time.  There  were

hardly any jobs available. I gave the UPSC exam

for engineering services and I got through it but

the  result came  very later  because  in those

times, the results declaration use to take a lot

of time, sometimes even two years. So before

that  could have  happened,  I  got two viable 

options for pursuing M.Tech. One was from IIT

Bombay  and  the  other from  IIT  Kanpur.

Bombay I had already stayed for four years and 

at that time, Kanpur had a name because of the

research activities they carried out there. So I

went there for my post­graduation. Later I got 

two jobs offer during my placement time, one 

was TATA Consulting Engineers and other was 

an upcoming firm, it was Builder’s Associate to 

which I joined here at Bombay. I worked there 

for  18 months  but  during  that  point I  use  to 

come here at IIT Bombay in weekends to meet 

Professor C.K.Ramesh., then he influenced me 

a  great  deal, and  that  made  my  decision  to 

apply  for  lectureship  in  IIT  Bombay.  At  that

time Ph.D. was a very big thing and only a few 

were  doing it  so M.Tech  was the  minimum 

criterion  for the  lectureship  plus I had  an 

industrial experience  so I joined here.  So

overall I would say that it was all an accident. I

would  have  remained  in  industries  for whole

my  life  but  it  was destined  the  other  way

around and then the things  followed and  life 

continued.  I never  looked  back  and  started 

doing my Ph.D. along with my teaching here.  

Well accidents do create a Wonder sometimes 

and  now  after  serving  the  whole  civil

engineering fraternity  for  almost  40 years, 

one  would  have easily made  a  decision for 

staying back from work after retirement, but 

it  didn’t  seems  an obvious  decision in your 

case  as  you decided  for being  the  Institute

Chair  Professor.  What  is the  reason behind

this motivation of working continuously?

According to me, our profession is not a job you 

are  here because  you  wanted  to be.  If  you

don’t  like it, you  shouldn’t  be  a teacher  or  a

professor  and  if you do like  it, there’s never

ending  to  it.  In  teaching,  our  mind  is 

continuously working  unlike  the  other 9 to  7

job  where you  work  and then  go  home  and 

take rest. And from the very starting only, my 

mindset was such that  I always  loved  the 

analytical  and  computational  field and  that’s 

another reason that kept me going and also till 

today my health  is good enough  to work and 

contribute and that’s why I am still here.

With such a long run of success, can you name

a few to whom you would like to credit your

success to?

Well  one  is obviously  Prof.  C.K.Ramesh who

influenced me and brought me here and then 

all this started. He always liked whatever work 

I  did  and  always  encouraged  me  about  the 

possible  solution  gateways of  any  particular

problem. Second person is my wife, who gave 

lot  of  freedom,  of  course  she  complained

about my late coming to home but was never

so much particular in all this. I had a lot of Ph.D. 

students and to supervise them and their work,

I use to stay late here, somewhat till 9 o’clock. 

I had a good batch of students under me and

we did a quality work. All what I have to do was 

just to motivate them which made them keep 

going  and  to  produce  some  significant  work. 

The third thing I would credit my success is my 

single mindedness. Because as a professor, you

should not get involved in too many things, be

specific  and be  deeper.  I was so particular

about  my  field  of  work  “Plates  and  Shells”

which  I  liked since  my M.Tech  days and  its

endless problems that kept me engrossed in it.

Throughout  your  career,  you have been

awarded and honored and now you have a big 

list of  all  such  recognitions.  Among those 

please  name  your three proudest

accomplishments.

In my initial years, when I was less than thirty

five,  the  NEHRU Fellowship  was my  biggest

achievement. It was awarded to a single person 

in the whole country and the competition was 

not only in civil or any engineering but in all the 

fields  being it  the  economics  or  humanity  or 

medical  or  science.  They judge people  from 

various  backgrounds and then  the  selected 

candidates were  interviewed by a panel from

PM  office and  then the final interview  was

taken by the Honorable Prime Minister himself.

I was unaware of  this last procedure and my

interview by our Honorable Prime minister Mr.

Morarji  Desai  was a  surprise  and  I got  this 

information  of  my  last interview prior to 

around  two  or  three  hours before  the

interview. So obviously I was not prepared for

any  such  thing  but  still  I  went  for  it  and

received the prestigious NEHRU FELLOWSHIP 

which proved to be a big boost for my morale.  

But  the best  award for  any  person  is  the

recognition by its own people and the LIFETIME

ACHIEVEMENT AWARD which this department 

and  this  institute  has awarded  me is  the 

greatest honor  for me and  it feels wonderful 

when I thinks that according to my people, I am

a lifetime achiever. And the third one I would

say  is my nomination as a  fellow of  the  four 

highest academies  of  science in  our country.

These  academies,  note that  they are  an 

academy and not any society, are controlled by 

the tops engineers and scientists of the nation

and I  had  been  privileged  to  get  elected by

their nomination and not by applying in all the 

A talk with Professor Tarun Kant� Abhideep Sahu

Prof. Tarun Kant

Institute Chair Professor,

Department of Civil Engineering

IIT Bombay

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four academies. I am the only civil engineer in

the  country  who got elected  to  all the  four, 

Indian National  Academy  of Engineering, 

Indian  Academy  of  Sciences, Indian National 

Science Academy and The National Academy of 

Sciences, India and all these fellowship are for

lifetime and you serve these academies for the 

cause and benefits of science.

Comparing the time when you joined here as

a  lecturer  and  now, what  major  academic 

difference  have occurred in  this period? Are 

you satisfied  with the  current  academic 

curriculum? 

See according to me, the decision made by the 

last  committee,  the  Biswas Committee  has

spoilt  our curriculum. The  balance  was lost, 

important things  like  practical  training  were 

removed  and then the very  essential part  of 

graduation, the BTPs were also removed citing 

the  reason  of  wastage  of  a  lot  of  time  of 

professors and students but I would say that all

these things are not meant for the convenience 

but  for  the  betterment  of  students  and  thus 

there  removal  was not  a right  decision.  And 

many courses were also removed but now we 

are  trying  to correct that by  reintroducing  a

few  essential courses. Then the  number of

students  have  increased three  folds  but  the

number  of  faculties  didn’t.  Now  the  positive 

changes I would say, one is  that the research 

culture has developed a lot. In our times only 

faculties used to research on new possibilities 

in their field but now we have students also to 

contribute  to that. Also most  of  our  faculty

members who are joining us are already from 

good research background and hopefully that

will further improve the scenario here.

Any significant thing  in terms of department 

or general civil engineering which you would

say better in olden times??

There is  a  lack  of devotion  towards  the 

department. Now the new entrants are more 

self­centered and are less bothered about the 

department. See I had considered this place as

my  home. The attachment with  the 

department  is  somewhere missing.  Even as a 

faculty,  I  was  very  extrovert  and  use to  take

interest  in a  lot of departmental and institute 

activities. I was the  founding member of  the 

Faculty Forum which takes care of the interests 

of the faculties and maybe I was a thorn in the 

eyes of  the administration but  I  continued  to

do things because for me all  those meant  for 

the  betterment  of my  people.  I think  people

should  come out  and must  spent  some  time

with  the  department and  contribute to  it

because  if  the  department  grows, they  also 

grow. Secondly, in the recent times I have seen 

some exchange program students complaining

about  unavailability  of  proper study 

environment in the  hostels.  They  complain

about  all  these  so called  social  and cultural

activities and commotions being carried  out.

This  culture is  somewhat  pushing  us  back

because  the  study  hours of  the  students  got 

constraint to only a night before the exams and 

this is surely a result of the lack of seriousness 

towards studies.

What  standard  does  IIT Bombay  possess  on

the post­graduation level as compared to the 

foreign universities?

Well I don’t agree with the typical mindset that

those universities are better than us. Based on 

my  experiences  in  many  universities as a 

faculty to those institutes, as far as teaching is 

concerned,  we  are much  better  than  those 

universities.  We  have  more  sound  teaching

programs both at UG level and PG level but the 

place  we  lack  is  the  infrastructure,  the 

environment and the administration of certain

policies. Like taking the example, we have got 

so many  software  in  the  department  but we 

failed  in  implementing  them. The  supervision 

that is  needed  to  teach students  and make 

them proficient, is absent here which is not so

in  those  universities  and  that’s  why  our 

students struggles a lot when the go out from 

here.  So there’s a  need  to  bring in more

practical  training sort  of  things/programs.  I

personally  believe  that  every person

graduating  from  our  department,  must  be

proficient if not in all then at least in few and if

we are not able to provide that facility, then we 

must introduce  some  professionals from

outside to teach our students.

Considering the current batches, do you think 

that  the  students are consistent  with  the

standard of IIT Bombay?

See our institute is the premium most institute 

of the nation but I am totally dissatisfied with 

the students code of conduct here. They have

perceived  very  casual attitude  and I am  very

much concerned about this. In our times, there 

was no question of absenteeism in class even

up till the final years except a few may be one 

or two. But now predominantly a large number 

of  students don’t  come to the class and  they

think that they will learn everything by reading, 

then  that  is not  possible. It does not matter

much that a particular professor is good or bad

in terms of teaching but still if you listen to him, 

you ought to learn at least something. And one 

thing  is  we are  not  a  school  so that we  can 

control  them and their activities by imposing 

some  rules  and  regulations  but  at  the  same 

time we are telling them that what is important

for  them, but we  fail in  getting any  response 

from  them,  they  are just  spoiling  themselves 

with this culture. They cannot afford to be so

casual  at  their  workplace  and one must

develop a proper attitude now and this is the 

place for their development. But what I see is 

students  are  fooling  themselves  and their

parents by adopting so casual and irresponsible 

behavior and today if  I put students from NIT 

or any other local institute for a task, they will

be  proven  better than  out  students because 

they have realized their sense of responsibility

and  they are more dedicated  and motivated

towards their career. This is a big loss to us and 

the nation because our students are the best

mind but they could not get converted to the 

best  talent.  So I  would say  that  they must

realize what they are here for and should work 

to fulfil that aim.

You have experienced the professional world

for many years so what according to you is the 

success mantra one  should  have to be  as

successful as you are today?

HARDWORK, IT REWARDS.  See you cannot 

deny  that.  Sincerity and hard  work  are  two 

basic ingredients for any successful story. You

must be sincere  and you must do hard work 

and then the rest follows.

Now we have many young professors joining

us and you will be a role­model for them. Any

professional  or  personal  message  that  you

would like to share with them?

The  new  faculties  we  have  here  are highly 

talented and well deserve to be here because 

our  selection  process  is very  exhaustive  in 

terms of faculties too. So what I would like to 

say to them is to have a specific vision and be a

firm believer of depth of the subject & not of 

its width.  Pursue  your goals with seriousness

and dedication and then the success will surely 

follow  you. And in addition  to  that,  also

includes the interest of the department in your 

personal goals, try to think of the department

and the ways to improve it, this thought must

be there in everyone.

What  would  be  your message  for  our 

students?

The message is simple, you people are the best 

mind  in the  nation  but  what  you all lacks  is

sincerity and dedication. So spent some more 

time in studies  because this  is the only  ideal

time and place to study and develop yourself. 

Obviously  everybody  cannot  excel  but 

everybody can at least give it a try so try your 

best and surely that will take you to the life that

will  be  very  fruitful  in  the  later  years.  I  am

always  available  for  you  and  if  you seek  any

guidance  any help being it academic or  non­

academic, I will be very happy to help you out. 

And good students must come back to us  for 

teaching. In  recent  times I  have  seen a  top 

ranker  of our  department got placed  in  a 

financial  job which is  not  good  because  if 

people like them will go for such options, then 

that  is something  unfortunate and  I  am  not

happy about it. So wherever you go, whatever 

you do, at least serve for the cause of the civil

engineering.  All the Best�

“Our institute is the premier mostinstitute but I am worried about the casual behavior of the students here.I just wish that students must realize the importance of this time and develop themselves and this demandsnothing more than a bit of sincerity and dedication from them towards their studies.”

6                                                                                                                                                       BLUEPRINT: Newsletter of Civil Engineering Department, IIT Bombay   

Dr.  Nagendra  Rao  Velaga is  a  self­made man

who had passed  over  the  expectations  that 

were put over him and who has risen against 

the  odds  is. Prof.  Velaga who studied  at  a

municipality school in his childhood has dreamt

of becoming a civil engineer and then a faculty 

in  IIT.  He  did  his  B.Tech  from  Nagarjuna 

University and M.Tech from IIT Bombay, being 

University rank 1 and Department rank 1 at the 

both respective places. He left IIM Bangalore’s 

Fellow  Program  in Management  offer  just

because he wanted  to do  his  thesis in

transportation engineering, and then went  to

Loughborough  University, UK for  his  Ph.D

work.  Currently  Prof.  Velaga  is  designated  as

the  assistant professor  in the Department  of

Civil Engineering, IIT Bombay and also honorary 

research fellow at University of Aberdeen, UK.

Here are some excerpts from a talk with him…

What  did you aim for  when you were a 

teenager? Did you ever thought of becoming 

a civil engineer and finally landing up here as

a faculty of IIT Bombay??

Absolutely when  I was a  teenager,  becoming

engineer was one of my objective and being a

civil  engineer  was always  my  priority  over

other disciplines. Apart from that I always had 

a thought  for  becoming a  faculty and  that’s

why I opted for higher studies and did Ph.D and

post­doctoral work and finally got to be here as

your faculty. 

Well that’s quite interesting that you worked 

for your dream and made it come true. But we 

would  like to  know  that  was  there  any 

particular incidence or your parent’s influence 

to make it sure that yes, it is Civil Engineering

only. 

To  be honest,  I would say  that in this whole

aspect,  my  parent’s influence was zero.  The

most what they expected from me was that  I

would  end  up  somewhere  near intermediate 

studies (i.e., 10 + 2 level) and that would be all

for my life. They would have never thought of

me  being  a  faculty here  at  IIT  Bombay.

Regarding joining  civil engineering,  I always 

had some sort of very brief relevant knowledge 

of this field which may be because I had some 

field exposure while travelling with my father 

but  basically I  had  no  clear  idea  about  the 

differences between all the streamswhen I was

choosing civil engineering. As I started pursuing

my graduation, I got a thought of staying on the

academic side and then I came here for my Post 

graduation  and  seeing  the  freedom and  the 

activities that  were being  carried out by  the

faculties here, I made my mind for becoming a 

faculty  in  IITs, not  at  any IIT  but  particularly 

here  at IIT  Bombay.  And  that  was the  only

reason I went for my Ph. D. study.

Well that’s something in accordance with the

reputation of  IIT Bombay­ inspiring  youths 

since 1958.  So as you said that your parents

never believed in your academic potential. So 

when you decided for all you career prospects 

like  for your  graduation and  then post­

graduation, did your parents supported your

decision for the same?

The family background am hailing from is not

so strong  in terms  of academics. My parents 

were  very casual  about me  and my career. 

When I told them that I will be joining in IIT for 

my M.Tech or will be going to UK for my Ph.D., 

the only thing they got to know is that their son 

is going ahead  for higher  studies. They didn’t

even know about what IIT is. So I would say that

my  parents  or  any  other  person  had  zero

influence  in my decisions taking. Whatever

work  I  did  till  today is  only  because  of  my 

personal interest. 

After  coming  back  to  the  institute  after  Six

years,  what  particular  did you observed 

here?? And how do u correlate yourself as a

student  then with the students who are

currently enrolled in our department.

Definitely  there  were  many  changes  I found

when  I  came  back  here;  for  instance,

construction of  some  high  rise  buildings,

improved labs facilities and many more. Earlier

we  use to  do  our  practical  labs in an  old

building  (to which  he called  BHOOT BANGLA

and  laughed) which  was there before VMCC

and in the transportation lab (TSE lab) we used

to share the computers for our dissertation and

project purposes but now seeing the facilities 

we have, I can surely say that the department

has seen some drastic change over the period

of last 6­7 years. 

Regarding  a  correlation  between the  current

students and students of my time, I would say

that the comparison  will  vary  from batch  to 

batch.  Seeing  the current Ph.D. and Masters

students, I would say that their attitude, their

way of thinking and quality have not changed a

lot. But with respect to B.Tech students, I had

observed  a  drastic change.  If  we  look  at  the 

long  run of  around  past 15  to  20  years,  the 

mentality of  the  students have changed a lot

and this is not particular for our department or 

our  institute but  for all  the  IITs. The students 

now are more confused and get influenced as 

compare to that of  those  back  in 1990  and

2000. What I have observed is that previously 

students  were  more determined  and 

concerned about  their  goals and motives but 

students  (about  80%) now  are  very  casual. 

They  don’t know what they  want to do  and 

what  they need  to  do. Most  of  them  just

follows the  ground rules set by either  their 

parents or seniors or the preexisting situations. 

I  can  give  you  the  examples  of  some  of  our 

professors like Prof.  Tarun Kant,  Prof.  D.N.

Singh, (who  are  internationally  renowned

faculty)  they persuaded  their  bachelors and 

masters  and even  their Ph.D.  from the  same 

IITs  but  does  this  degraded  them or  their

potential??? The answer is obviously no! They 

didn’t  hesitated  in doing their  higher  studies

from  here because  they  had  belief  in 

themselves. But the current generation is tend 

to  follow  more  of  other’s advice then  of

themselves. This  sometimes  leads to  the 

compromising condition in their career where 

they are forced or obliged to do certain things

which are not of their interest and they have to 

do  that  because  either  it has been  done  by 

someone influential or this what their parents 

want  them to do. This has  resulted in loss of

intellectuality and  students  are  not actually 

coming  up  with  their  best  results  despite of 

having  a lot of  talent  and  potential to do 

wonders. Even before coming to IIT and during

their first year here, their goals are been set or 

influenced  by  some  seniors or  parents about

their  job  and  package  etc.  and  in  all  this 

scenario,  one’s  intellectual  capabilities are

been lost and he/she just get confined to this 

small  bubble  of  getting  a  package  of 

xyz/annum at the end of their graduation. And 

such  things leads  to  a  kind  of  disinterest 

towards their respective core engineering and

they are bound to do things which are not of 

their interest.  And looking at  the  stats  of 

recent  times,  around  60 to  70 percent  of 

students leaves their job within 2 years or so &

the reason is obvious, if you don’t pursue your 

interest, you will definitely  struggle  in future.

So what I would  emphasize  here  is  that

students  lacks a  sense of  self­realization  and 

self­motivation.

That’s  a very  deep answer sir. Well keeping

the  JEE  time aside  as  at that  time  student 

remains some  sort  of  immature, even now 

when one  is about  to  get  graduate  and  is

mature enough to  take important  decisions, 

one  remains  confused  about  his career

prospects. So what  particular  mindset  one

should have in such scenario?? 

What  I would  recommend  is  that one should

understand  that  what  actually  will make

him/her  happy. What  actually  he/she desires 

for and then the person should come up with

some kind of research in that particular field (I 

mean exploring more details about that field!).

Exploring the existing career opportunities and 

all other aspects of that field and then he/she

needs to priorities  things according to their 

comfort. And then one must start working for 

that  goal,  the  way  to reach  their  and 

accomplish their  dream.  Their  mindset  and

deeds should be such  that  at  the  end of  the 

day, they  should  find  themselves moving 

towards  their  goal.  And  at  the  same time,

Interview with Professor Nagendra Rao Velaga: A Rise against the Odds!!

� Abhideep Sahu��

Prof. Nagendra Rao Velaga

Assistant professorTransportation systems Engineering

Civil Engineering Department, IIT Bombay

7                                                                                                                                                       BLUEPRINT: Newsletter of Civil Engineering Department, IIT Bombay   

considering the  uncertainty  of  things  in  life,

one should always have a backup option as life 

is  mostly something unexpected. But all this 

must be part of intellectual decision and not an

influenced one. 

Seeing your list of priorities, you put structural

first  and  transportation second.  So 

throughout  all  these years, at any  point  of

time  did you ever  regretted  that why didn’t

you opted for structural engineering?

Well many times I had got people coming to me 

and saying that I am underperforming because 

this particular things is not my field of interest 

and  that’s  obvious excuse  and  that’s what

common  human  Psychology  is  but  I don’t 

believe  in  constructing  an excuse  for my bad 

performance or  any  such  situation.  What  I

would say is that even though if you put me in

some other specialization say water resources, 

I would have performed the same. I am more 

oriented to my work rather than constructing

unmaterialistic  concepts and  thoughts.  And 

one more  thing  I  would  like  to  say  that  it  is

more challenging to perform better if you don’t 

like your particular field and thus you have an 

option to excel in it.  The excuse of not my field 

of  interest is  valid  only  when  you  are 

comparing engineering with sociology or with 

medical  or  law  because the  field  definitely

changes  their  but  within  engineering  the 

comparison  between  mechanical  and civil  or 

any other branch is not so relevant according

to me.

Do you agree with it that the there’s been a

huge  difference  between the theoretical

concept taught  in class and  the  real  life 

practical application of those??

(With a continuous smile when  I was asking

him  the  question he  replied…) You  have 

actually asked me a very good question and I 

want  to  point  you  something  that  you  guys,

actually not only you but even me when I was 

of your age use to think that I am not getting 

any  kind  of  practical  exposure;  but  I want  to 

clearly emphasize that if you really want to get 

some  exposure,  you  don’t  need to go for  a

technical trip to Goa. For example, taking our 

students,  even  after  learning  theory in  the

class,  there  should  be  an  urge  within  the 

student to learn or see the practical aspect of 

the  same and  for this you  don’t need to go 

anywhere else;  in our campus  itself  there are

different kinds  of  construction going  on, 

different types of foundations are being laying 

down  but  nobody  goes there. Taking the 

example of Infinity corridor where we can see

the failed columns being laid off but did anyone 

stopped  there  and  notices  their  failure 

pattern??  NO!  Because  the  curiosity is  not

there  to  learn.  If  one really  tries  to  explore 

things then no one can stop him from learning

things up but the problem is nobody tries for it 

and instead they seek for a so called ‘work visit 

trip’ which is absolutely nothing more than a 

FUN  trip. Other  thing is  even  in the  practical 

labs, one’s motivation is restrained to just get

the AA grade and get himself out  from it but 

normally  students ever  tries  to  learn some 

basic things out of these experiments. Having

done your surveying course from IIT, if one day 

your father asks you to check the procedure of

the  people surveying your  land, will you  be 

comfortably able to do that? The answer would

be NO for most of the students and that’s again

because they never took these things seriously

and  never  tried  to  get  the  best out of  the 

facilities  available  to  them  here.  So it’s  not 

what  institute  lacks  in providing  but  it’s

something what lacks in student and it the self­

motivation  to learn  things. And  I would  even

suggest that it is not necessary to go to the big

firms  for  learning,  you  can  even work with  a 

contractor  for a month or  two and there you

will learn more as compared to the big firms.

As you said that you had an aim of becoming

a faculty but seeing your work profile  it says

that you had worked for company like GMR in 

the past. So was there some sort of swing in 

your  aim  or  some  specific  reasons  that  you

went for a job?

Well there was never a second thought for my

career goal. I always wanted to be a faculty and 

I had always worked  for  it. But what actually

happened  was during  my  time here as a 

M.Tech student, alike the other students, I also

applied for some Ph.D. and also appeared for

placement and  then  I  got  admission  to  this

Fellow  Program  In Management  (which is 

equivalent to Ph.D in IIMs) at IIM Bangalore in 

Finance and control, and  Public  systems  and

policy. I also got two job offers but as decided I

went for  my Ph.D (i.e.,  IIM  B).  But I  always 

wanted to do  some sort  of  management 

economics  in transportation  and  which  was

offered by a  single  faculty at  that  time in  IIM 

Bangalore and when I talked to him, because of 

some reasons he was not available to supervise 

me – he is about to retire. So I was left with no 

option  other than either doing my Ph.D. in 

some other field or leaving the IIM Bangalore. I

chose the latter one and then I applied at GMR 

and  they offered me a job and I joined  them

but with an open and mentioned intention that

I won’t be working  for  long  there as I will be

applying for my Ph.D. and they didn’t objected

that and I worked there for some months and

then I left to UK to pursue my Ph.D.

Well  that was  a  bold  decision to leave IIM

Bangalore!  Now  talking  about  our  core  civil

engineering,  do you think that a  B.Tech

Degree is sufficient for a person applying in a 

core job?

Yes  definitely an  undergraduate  degree  is 

sufficient  to fetch you  a  decent  job  in  the 

beginning but what  I wish  to  highlight  is  the 

limit of growth here.  After six years or seven

years,  one  cannot  grow beyond  a particular

level  and  at  that  particular  stage  one  should

definitely have  some sort of management  or 

master’s degree at least to grow further.

Many  times  intelligence  does  not  get

converted to grades. So in that scenario how 

do you differentiate among the students that 

this  particular  students has  a  bright  career

ahead? Is it on the basis of CGPI that one has

maintained?

With reference to the grades system here, it is 

only the indication of level sincerity, dedication

and seriousness one has perceived. For me you

all  are equally  intelligent but only a  few uses

that intelligence and scores higher. But if I am 

a HR person  from a  company, its obvious  for

me  to  tempt towards  a  student  with  higher 

CGPI  because  for  me  again  all  students  are 

intelligent but what I want take is more serious 

and regular person to work in my company and 

I  won’t prefer  to take a  student  who is  not 

systematic  and  not sincere  and  doesn’t

manage his/her time and resources well. So in

that  scenario,  grades  are  becoming  more 

important.  And  for  those who say  that  they

didn’t get good grade in this particular subject 

because it is not their interest; for them I would

say that what if the job profile which I am going 

to offer you will not interest you again?? There

will  definitely  be some uncertainty that  you

might not perform but  there will be absolute 

guarantee of the  person with  high  CGPI  that 

he/she will perform well.

Can you list down the three major professional

achievements of your life so far?

(With a smile he responded by saying…)  The

first one  is becoming a  faculty in IIT Bombay. 

And there are every step in my career which is 

a kind of good achievment for me because the 

family  background  I am coming from,  is  not

strong either in terms of education or financial

condition. So every step is a big step for me. 

So  far its  now obvious  that  you are a  Self­

made man, but still at any point of your career 

was there anyone who was your role model or

who backed you up in your low times?

If  I  want  to say  to  you  that I  did  put  this

particular person as my role model, I wouldn’t 

be achieving this, I wouldn’t be reaching here.

I am self­motivated, I know what I want to do

so I  just  think  towards  that  and  I  never  ever 

think of someone else for motivating me. 

Would  you like  to  give any message  to  our 

students??

I  would say  that you  must  be aware  of  the 

consequences of what you are doing. Don’t just

work  under  anyone’s  influence  and  have  an 

idea of about why I need to do this and why I 

want  to do  this. And even  though if many of

you  have  landed  up  at  the  wrong discipline 

according to you  (regarding the civil 

engineering as preference), you should take it

as a challenge and work a bit harder to change 

your  stream and do  your masters or Ph.D.  in

your  interested  field. And never compromise

with your happiness for certain things because

there is no limit of earning but sacrificing your 

happiness and missing other important things

for  this  is  worthless.  So plan  your  career 

appropriately and work happily. GOOD LUCK 

And the last question, which time would you 

consider  the best,  the one when you were a 

student here or now when you are a faculty?

Without  hesitation  it is  now when I  am

enjoying the most and happy about most. The

reason being now I am able to help somebody 

and  motivate  them and  if anyway  can

contribute to their betterment and this would 

made me the happiest ever.

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Change  is the  rule of  nature,  and  our 

department strictly adheres to it, then being it

be  the  infrastructure  or  the  academic 

curriculum or the practical facilities, everything 

is  going  under  some  serious  changes.  The

department’s investment on its  infrastructure 

and other facility has shoot up with a vision of 

reestablishing it as a better place to learn and

grow.  Also considering the  increment  in  the 

compulsory  credits,  a  lot of  thinking is  being 

done for the revision of the existing curriculum 

and to do the needful to ease the ways out of 

the student through their academic years. 

The department will  be the whole new place

with  the  completion  of  the  renovation  work 

which  is being  undergoing.    The master  plan

includes  the  construction  of  a  number  of 

facilities  &  a few  of  them  has already  been

installed and are being used by the students. As 

per  the  plan,  there  will  be  installation  of  a

computer lab with all new 120 computational 

facilities in placed, as a replacement of the old 

UG  and PG labs at  the  ground  floor.  The  old 

Geodesy  lab has been  converted  to a  well 

facilitated  library and  according to the 

proposed plan, there will be inclusion of 6 new

class rooms at the second floor. Apart from this 

11  new  faculty  rooms  are  also going to be

constructed at first and second level with the 

old ones going under renovation. To hold the 

seminars there  is  a proposed  large seminar

hall, a conference hall and two meeting rooms, 

all  assembled with  latest technologies at  the 

first  floor.  The department will  also have  the 

facility of  lift at  the western  side and a  small 

cafeteria  at  the  terrace.  All  these  plans  are 

expected  to  reach  completion  by the end of 

December this year.

It’s  not  only  the  infrastructure  at  which the

department  is  spending, but also on  the 

academic grounds.  The department  has

received a  whopping sum of  INR  8.4  crores

from  the  Ministry  of  Human  Resources  and

Development  to improve  the laboratory 

facilities  and  maintain them as per  the 

international  standards. Despite of being  a

premier institute, the condition of labs (except

those which were recently installed at VMCC) 

are  not  up  the  standard with  most  of  the 

equipment  and  machineries  being  outdated.  

Thus  taking  care  of this,  with the  assistance

from  the  MHRD,  all  the  labs including  the 

Heavy Structure,  Hydraulics, Geotechnical, 

Pavement Engineering, Concrete and GPS, will 

be  upgraded  with new  machinery  and 

instruments before  the  starting  of the  next 

session.  As  per the  information  collected an

order of about INR 4.4 crore has already been 

placed and the remaining sum will be spent by 

the end  of April  2014. Having realized  about

the  importance  and need of  research  in  the 

growth,  the  Government of  India has  again

planned to provide some financial aid for R&D 

which will be carried  out  at  our department.

The department will be investing  around  INR

5.6 Crore only on research infrastructure. This

fund  has been  granted  under  FIST scheme

which is the Fund for Infrastructure in Science 

&  Technology,  passed  by the  Department  of 

Science  & Technology (DST), Government  of

India.

The decision  making  committee of  the 

department  has worked  out  on some

previously conceptualized idea and is currently 

in  state of  implementing them  from  the new

session. The proposed changes are likely to be

accepted by the Senate meeting. The decisions 

taken  are for  the  full  benefit  of  the  students 

and  to assist them to carry out their learning 

process smoothly. From the input we got from 

Professor  Raaj Ramshankaran,  it  can  be  said 

that  the  changes  which  are  to  be  made  are 

majorly  influenced  by  the  increment in  the 

total  compulsory  credits  of  the  recently 

enrolled UG batch. The significant  increase of

credits from 252 to 272 will obviously results in

somewhat  increase  in the academic  pressure

over the  students. Among  the  big ones,  a 

decision was the revision  of  the Honors

criterion, which will  be entitled  of only  four

courses, being cut down from 5. But the major 

difference is not the release of one course but

the  allowance  of  doing  a BTP for  earning  an

honors citation. That means a student can have

his honors degree within a span of one year by

doing a BTP of 18 credits (that will serve as the 

replacement  of  3  courses)  and  a  separate 

course of 6 credits. As said by Prof. Raaj that

this  is  to  ensure  that the work  load  of doing

extra 24 credits should not disturb  the actual 

B.Tech program  of  the  student. The other 

recommendation for the same program is that 

the one course, apart from the BTP should be 

of the same specialization/field as that of BTP

so as to  make  the  Honors more  significant. 

There’s also a relief  for  the students who are 

not willing to do a BTP and it’s the removal of 

the  compulsory  courses  concept  from  the 

Honors.  The  earlier  system of  studying  some 

specific  courses to be the part of  the Honors 

has been  revoked. Now  students  are  free  to

choose  any  4  courses  as part  of  the  Honors

Degree.

The  increase in  the minimum  credit  criterion 

has obviously  resulted  in  the  inclusion of  few

new  courses but  also in the  deduction  of 

credits of  the existing ones. The new courses

introduced  are  Building  Materials &

Construction, Probability  &  Statistics  for  Civil 

Engineers, Water  Resource  Engineering,  and

Foundation Engineering.

With all  the above courses being of 6 credits,

the Building Materials & Construction is to be

taught in 2nd year whereas the other 3 will be

the compulsory courses of  the final year. The

course on Probability and Statistics is kept as a 

replacement  of  IC211  the Experimental  and

Measurement  Laboratory as there  has  been 

nothing much  related  to  Civil  engineering  in

that course. . Apart from these a new course, 

Engineering Geology will  also be offered as a 

compulsory course.  This  course will  be 

instructed  by the  Earth Science  Department 

and the exact structure of the course is yet to 

be  finalized  as it  demands  for  a  practical  lab

also and the department is still looking for the

place to avail  that facility. Also there are  few

courses whose contents has been revised and

a  few  whose  credits are  been  changed.  The 

CE206,  Hydraulic  Engineering  will now  be 

Applied  Hydraulic Engineering  with  an 

inclusion of  the concepts of  the water  supply

and treatment along with the old content. The 

Design of Structure courses which are offered 

in the fifth and sixth semester has seen a major

revamping. The course will now be named as

Structural Design I and Structural Design II with 

the abolition of extra three credits of the lab.

With  change  in  minimum  credits 

requirement, many  new  courses  have

been introduced, many existing courses

have  been revamped  and  a  few

interesting  changes  in  the  curriculum

are thought to be implemented by the

next session. A qualifying exam for the

Ph.D. students to decide the quality of

their thesis is also under consideration.

Infra-Development & Curriculum Update� Abhideep Sahu

Library @ Civil, IITB

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The total course Credits will now be six in place

of the current nine. The Soil Mechanic I and Soil

Mechanics  II will now be called  as Geotech

Engineering I and Geotech Engineering II as the 

course content has been fully revised and some

new  concepts  of  rock  sciences has been 

introduced to it. The two transportation labs of 

Sixth and  Seventh semesters  have been 

merged and there will be now single lab which 

will be offered in the Sixth semester. Another

big  step  taken  by the  department  is  the 

allotment of six  faculty advisors for the every 

fresher batch, i.e. per faculty advisor there will

be at most 20  students. This  step will ensure 

the  easy  and  healthy  monitoring of  the

students  and will  also ease  out  the  complex 

connectivity between the faculty and students.

All  these  proposed  decisions  will  be 

implemented  only at the currently enrolled 

fresher batch and the batches next to come. 

There’s another decision which  is been  taken 

by the committee and that is  to open the Dual 

Degree  program  in  all  specialization  but  this

will  not be applicable for  the currently  third

year  batch.  The  second  year  batch  might  be

given some consideration depending upon the 

norms being set for the same. But this decision 

is  fully viable  for  the  fresher  batch.  The

application for  the  conversion  must  be

submitted by the first phase of sixth semester 

i.e.  Pre­midsem.  The enrollment criterion are 

yet to be finalized.

The change which  will affect  all the batches

(except the current final year) is the selection 

of department electives. The pool system has

been revoked and now instead of selecting one

course from each pool (total 6 pools and thus 6

dept.  electives)  now the  students  can select 

any 6 of their preferences. Also there’s been a 

talk  on making  some of  the  institute  courses 

liable  to  be  tagged  as dept.  elective.  For  this 

the DUGC is preparing a list of such courses and 

is  considering  their  course  content.  The  final

decision about the same is yet to be taken. Also

the  previous decision of  dropping the  civil

minor  has been  taken  back and a  set of  five

new courses has been designed to give a brief 

introduction of overall civil engineering. These 

course  includes,  Building  Materials & 

Construction, Introduction to  Geotechnology,

Introduction to Ocean  Engineering, 

Introduction to  Water resource  Engineering

and  Introduction  to Transportation 

Engineering. 

For the Ph.D. scholars

The  department  is  planning  to  introduce a

qualifying exam  for  the  Ph.D.  students.  This 

exam  will be a  kind of  quality  check  for  the 

Ph.D. students which will be conducted time to 

time. As of now the PhD scholars are expected

to  complete at  least  2 courses  and a  few 

seminars but now the number of courses are 

planned to increases to 3 with the weightage of

seminars remaining the same.  The minimum 

acceptable CPI will be 7 and the students must

take a qualifier exam at  the end of  their  first 

year or else their Doctoral work is liable to get 

terminated by the department. This decision is

taken to  ensure  the quality  of  the  research 

work  and  to avoid  the  wastage  of  human 

resources which couldn’t produce the desired

results here.

When  asked about  the  introduction  of  the 

Honor Code, the reply from HOD sir was “We 

have  seen  many  unwanted  incidents  in  the 

recent times in which our students are involved

in unethical practices and we tend to decrease 

the frequency of such things but currently we

are  focusing on  reforming  our  system  and 

making it a better place for them to learn and

grow,  and  then  we  will  focus  on  restricting

their ways  from doing anything undesirable.” 

As  per the Prof.  Raaj,  the  department  is not

interested  in creating  some  additional  honor 

code  for  the  students  as there’s  already  one

under­framing  by  the  institute. It  would  be 

difficult  to  follow  two  different  sets  of codes 

and  therefore  the department will  follow  the 

institute’s norms and will control the students

as per it. 

Conduct the right engineering and do justice with you work and yourself!!!

However, we can have a good financial and time savings by not doing a geotechnical investigation!!

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Do you consider that it makes much difference in  pursuing masters/  Ph.D.  from abroad rather than our college??

I  believe  that exposure  to differentperspectives  and  methods  of  research  in a given  topic  at  diverse  institutions  are  very beneficial  to one’s  intellectual growth.  In  this light,  I am of the opinion  that  it does make a significant  difference pursuing  masters/PhD from  other institutes. UC Berkeley attractspassionate  researchers  from  all  around  the globe  and thus  gives me  an opportunity toobserve and  learn  from an extremely diversegroup of faculty and colleagues.

What are  the  ideal universities according to you which are best for this particular stream?? (Transportation,  structural,  Water  Resourcesetc.)

There are standardized  rankings available  fordifferent fields on QS rankings and USNews  rankings.  However, many  students  get lost  in  the  numbers  of  rankings  and  do  notfocus on their  research interests or faculty of the institutes that they are applying to. A well­ranked  university  is  mostly  a  good  place  to apply, but a student needs to understand the research focus of different faculty. Sometimes,an amazing  research  fit  is way more valuablethan a rank hierarchy in terms of the topic andquality of research you want to pursue.

A  student  remains  confused  about  whetherhe should go for higher studies or not. What according  to you would  be  the  possibledecisive mindset of a student to go for higher studies?

A very simple answer would be the interest andopportunity. If  you are  passionate  about studying more  and  you  are  convinced  thatthere  is  a  certain  topic  you want  to  dedicateyour next few years to, then there is very littleroom  for  doubt. If  financial  burden is  yourmajor  concern,  try  searching  for  possible scholarships  and loans in India  and  yourdestination country. There  are  manyunexplored  avenues  in  terms  of  financialsupport to students. I think your true interestand  passion  about what you want to  do  andwhere you want to see yourself should be thedeciding point for higher studies.

What are the further professional gateways inthis stream after pursuing MS or PhD??

You  would be  surprised at  the  number  ofoptions  students  have  after  pursuing higherstudies. Academia is  a very  competitive  andpopular  pursuit  after  a  PhD.  However, academia  is NOT  the only option available  to students pursuing higher studies. Also, a very surprising fact is that there are a large numberof  students  who pursue higher studies  in  acertain field may  end  up  working on  acompletely tangential field after graduationDue to change in interests. I believe that this isNOT  a ‘waste’  of  their education, as manywould  perceive.  According  to me, higher education gives you an amazing opportunity to Improve  your  structural  thinking,  problem­solving skills and focus on solving an unsolved problem in a field. These are valuable skills thatare  every  recruiter’s dream  match!  So the professional gateways are immense, if you are good  at what  you do, both in academia  andother non­academic jobs.

How  did you decided about  yourspecialization?  What  are  the  keyfactors/reasons  which  one  should  consider before deciding about his stream?

While deciding  my  specialization,  I  was veryconfused about which field  I would  apply  to.My  two  major  interests were  Transportation Engineering  and  Structural  Engineering. Themajor decision maker in my case was the work pursued  by  faculty  in  the  universities  of  my interest.  I  had  researched greatly  about thecurrent research pursuits of various professors in  both  the  fields.  The  decision making  afterthis became very clear to me. I was very excited about the diversity and interdisciplinary natureof  research in  transportation! I believe  thatdoing your homework and talking to studentsand faculty in IIT Bombay and your destination university about what is happening currently inthe field of your interest can be very useful andimportant.

What  is the  general  timeline  and corresponding  activities  of  the  whole  apingprocess?? Please illustrate it.

General Timeline:1) Try finalizing/drafting your university list andtry  contacting  students/seniors from  thatuniversity early to get their help and inputs onapplication process  by September­October.  Ifound  it  immensely useful  to prepare  a spreadsheet  of  the  deadlines,  requirements(recommendations,  transcripts,  etc.)  of  each university. (Seniors can get really busy towardsNovember/December with  their submissions and  research projects  and  may  not  be  veryavailable for your queries)2)  Try  getting  a strong  hold  on  your research/BTP at least by October. This will helpyou  gain  more  clarity  in  writing  your  SOP (Statement of Purpose). Also, discuss you plans with  your  advising  professors and  other professors who  have  helped/guided you  inyour  pursuits.  For me, this  was my biggeststrength  and I am very grateful to all  my professors who guided me in  my  aping decisions. I believe  that  students  grossly underutilize the information and advice that IIT

Bombay professor give and they can be careerchanging (for the best!), at least in my case!3)  Discuss with your  professors on  the possibility  of recommendation  by the end  of October  or  beginning of  November. Also,  bythe end of October have a good draft of yourSOP ready so that you could request seniors to review it for you (review by 3 seniors is good. Avoid  overdoing  it,  since  originality  is  one  of the most important aspects of an SOP!). Also, your recommenders may need a copy your SOP sometimes.4)  By November start filling  in the online applications  (in case  of  doubts, it  may  take some time for you to get back the replies. Sostart  in  advance!). If all goes  well, filling the online  application  doesn’t take too long.  Butmore often than not, you would be stuck with some  doubts and  might  have  to  email  the admission contact of the university. Also, check your applications to ensure that you have notmissed  out on  sending/attaching  important documents.5)  For  universities  which require  mailing  of transcripts,  send  the  transcripts at  least  15days before the deadline. 

Do you think  it  makes  much difference  inpursuing graduate studies from abroad rather than our college?

In my opinion one should do graduate studies outside the country. Being restricted to a place,most of the times confines our thoughts­we getused  to  thinking the  way our  seniors,professors,  etc. think. Basically,  we  getrestricted  to one  school  of  thoughts.  Doing graduate studies outside the country opens usto  different  social  interactions.  This  helps  inpersonal  growth,  and most  importantly broadens  our mind.  And  the most  important fact  is  that  most  of  the  time the  resources available  to  students  in an  American  or  a European university are comparatively better. So,  yeah  it does make a  difference  in  the context of personal growth and the resources available. However, I am not sure if it makes aconsiderable difference  in career opportunities.  I am still in academia andhaven't got enough taste of  the  job sector  to comment on it.

What  are the  ideal  universities according  to you which are best for this particular stream?? (Transportation,  structural,  Water  Resiurces etc.)

Well,  in  my opinion  the  ideal  universitiesdepend on the individual. Most of the students will  probably go  by  the  `QS World University 

Learn from the ACHIEVERS� Abhideep Sahu

Sreeta Goripatty(Batch of 2013)

MS, Transportation EngineeringUniversity of California, Berkeley

Higher 

Studies

Sudesh Agrawal

(Batch of 2013)

MS, Transportation Engineering

University of Texas, Austin

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Rankings'. However, it's not necessary that the best university will have the best researcher(s) in your  field. I would suggest  to talk to a fewPhD Students  before  applying  to  some university or under someone. This helps you to know  the  research  environment  and  work you'll potentially be in.

A  student  remains  confused  about  whetherhe/she  should  go for  higher  studies or  not. What according to you should be the decisionbased on?

This  is  a tricky  question.  I cannot  think  of something  in particular  that  you  should  base your decision on. I wanted to pursue graduate studies  because  I  wanted  to  stay in  the academia. This was mainly  because of  my experiences in a company during  myinternship. I was sure after that internship that taking up a  job would be my last preference. But  you  should  be  sure before  you  pursue graduate studies. Even three courses is quite aload here, and with the simultaneous research work the load is amplified.

How did you decide about your specialization? What  are  the  key  factors/reasons  whichstudents should  consider  before  deciding about their stream?

I am pursuing Transportation Engineering fromthe University of Texas atAustin. More specifically, my  research  field  isNetwork Modeling which  is  closely  related  to the  applications  of  operations research  intransportation  network.  Coding  is  one of myinterests and network modeling requires quite a bit of knowledge about Data Structures and Algorithms.  That  was the  most  importantreason why I chose transportation engineering.You  should  put  your  interests  above  all  to decide you stream. That is the only thing which will  motivate  you.  Apart  from  that  you probably should consider the funding scenarioand  the  job opportunities.  Also talk to your seniors and your professors (advisor), they'll be your best guide.

What  is the  general  time­line andcorresponding  activities  for  the whole  apingprocess? Please illustrate it.

In the sixth semester you decide if you want to pursue  graduate  studies;  you  do a  bit  of research on the universities you would like to apply  to,  and  then  you  narrow  down  your choice to  around  6­8  universities.  Then  youcheck the university  websites  to  know  what you are supposed to do for applying. Most of the  US universities  require  you to take  GRE and/or TOEFL. Students take it during summeror  latest  by  September so that one  can  start applying  by November |the  results  are available  for  sending one month later.  Once you  are  done  with  these  exams  you  start working on your  `Statement of Purpose',  andyou also start talking to professors/internship guide for recommendation letters. And last butnot the least you fill the application form andpay the fees. There should be resources online which talk about aping in detail.

It’s a general assumption that students with 9+ CPI only get a chance to pursue graduate studies in USA/Europe but, you have been anexception.  Can you please  list  down  the specific problems  which you had faced (because of your CPI and other issues too) andhow did you overcome them?

I did not  face any problems  in particular. But the problem one could face would be gettingrecommendations  from  three  professors.  Soyou  need  to make  sure  that  you have either worked  with three  professors (or  internship guides­not necessarily in an academic institute) or got very good grades in their courses. (Most of  the  universities ask for  threerecommendation letters.)

How big role does  the CPI  plays  in  anyone’s 

selection/hiring process?

I  would say  that CPI  does  play  a role in the 

hiring  processes with  a  nominal  one.  A  CPI 

above  7  is  acceptable  and  CPI  above  8  is

favorable.  It  is generally an  indication of how

seriously a  student has pursued academics in

college  and just reflects  some  sort  of

determination of the candidate.  Though,  it is 

NEVER  the determining  factor  for  final 

recruitment.

Does  the acquisition of  PORs plays any  vital 

role for deciding the candidate’s suitability for 

the job??

Well,  not exactly  but  yes, partially  it  does

counts.  The acquisition  of  PORs  is  NOT  as

important as what value addition the student 

has done, when holding that position but it just

showcases the  management  and  resource 

utilization skills within the candidate and how

he used them to fulfill his responsibilities.

What  are  the  key  attributes  you demands 

from a person seeking job  in your company?

Please illustrate it on the skills based technical 

as well as personal background. 

Technically – One should have at least 1 month 

of practical training on a construction site and 

familiar with basic  know­how of  construction

methodology. Other  bookish  knowledge  such

as practical  tests  and  theory  of  concrete  and

structures also proves to be handy during the 

interviews. 

Personally – The personal  attributes which 

counts much are the communication skills and

adaptability in  the  new environment.  One 

needs to be an efficient planner and keen eye

for  problem  solving.  Also a  go­getter. Other

thing  which  a  company  demands is  the 

intention to work for them for at least 3 years.

For  the hiring purposes, do you differentiate 

between a  Dual  Degree student  who came

from JEE background and an M.Tech student 

who has cleared GATE??

With no offence to M.Tech students, definitely

a JEE grad is preferred over a GATE grad. But, 

in many  cases  it depends on  the demands of 

the work  profile  and  if there  are  exceptional

M.Tech students, they will be preferred for the 

selection. The  prior field experience  sets  the

basis of hiring of any candidate.

Is  B.Tech  sufficient  for  acquiring  a  job  in 

core??  What is  the  major  difference  in  the 

growth of a B.Tech student and a student who

had persuaded masters??

A  B.Tech  is sufficient. Students  of B.Tech, 

M.Tech or Dual  Degree  with  no field 

experience will be hired for the same position. 

There MIGHT be a salary difference, depending

on  additional qualifications  but more  or  less,

it’s the same.

What is in general a time line of the growth of

any freshman in a core field?? (As a trainee, 

sr.  engineer, project head  etc.)What is  the 

average package of any civil engineer based

on his designation in the company??

The first 3 years have to be spent on field at a

construction site. These figures are only for IIT 

grads,  an engineering  trainee  from any other 

college has a CTC of INR 3 lakhs and will take 4­

6 years to reach position of Deputy Manager, 

ONLY if  he/she  is  a consistent performer.  As 

per  industry standards, I think  it is  probably 

one  of  the best.  High performers  with more

than  10  years of  experience  have  a  huge 

demand all over the world and the prospects of

working in foreign countries are excellent.

What  is  the  future  prospect  of  civil 

engineering in Indian and abroad and where

is it better?

The  prospect  of  civil  engineering  is bright 

everywhere in the world.  In  developing 

countries new infrastructure has to be created

and  in  developed  countries,  existing 

infrastructure  needs  to  be redesigned  and 

maintained. The  demand is  immense  and 

supply  is scarce. You can work in any country

you  like from India to Seychelles, Afghanistan

to Polynesia. The opportunities are limitless.

Timeline Possible  HighestPosition Attainable

Possible  CTC per  annum (in lakhs)

Year 0­1 Trainee (At site) 7

Year 1­3 Deputy  Manager(At site)

7­9

Year 3­5 Manager 9­12

Year 5­8 Senior  Manager(2nd in Command)

12­18

8+ Years 1st in  Command(Many positions)

18+

Rahul Ajmera

(Batch of 2012)

Management Trainee

Shapoorji Pallonji Engineering &

Construction

Professional 

Fields

12                                                                                                                                                      BLUEPRINT: Newsletter of Civil Engineering Department, IIT Bombay   

A beforehand experience is always good but 

what about those peoples who did their intern

in some fields (let’s say geotechnical firm) and

is  now  applying for  some other  stream  (say 

structural).  So  does  that  internship  or 

background acts  against his selection

process??

Well, an internship in civil helps definitely, but 

switching  fields within civil  shouldn’t dampen

prospects very much. This also depends from

case to case.

Any personal message or tips for the freshman 

who will be preparing for their job interviews?

Apply ONLY if you  are interested  in  civil

engineering and  working  at  one  place  for  at 

least  3 years.  Depending on the experience

with you, the company will decide whether to 

come to placements next time or not.

How big role does  the CPI  plays  in  anyone’s 

selection/hiring process?

Well  it  depends  what you  are  aiming  for. 

Obviously CPI plays a crucial role for core jobs 

as it a parameter to estimate your knowledge 

level.  It is an indication of one’s sincerity and 

dedication  because  whatever  u  had  done  in

your past four years, that’s all is finally going to

be reflected by this one figure. 

Does  the acquisition of  PORs plays any  vital 

role for deciding the candidate’s suitability for 

the job??

Considering the core field, not exactly but in a 

certain way.  Its  role  comes  in  to  the  picture 

when  they want  to  judge you  for  some  high

pressure  jobs  mainly in the  field of

management. It helps the firm to estimate the 

training time  a  person  will  be needing to 

become suitable for a particular job.

What  are  the  key  attributes  you demands 

from a person seeking  job  in your company?

Please illustrate it on the skills based technical 

as well as personal background.

NHAI  focus  on  two  things, technical  learning

and versatility. Technical ground is required to

understand the practicality of the job since you

will be the person who will verify the technical

aspect before  it get  implemented on site. On 

the other hand,  you will  also be dealing with 

administrative work, so you versatility plays an 

important role for this kind of job.

Is  B.Tech  sufficient  for  acquiring  a  job  in 

core??  What is  the  major  difference  in  the 

growth of a B.Tech student and a student who

had persuaded masters??

Well I wouldn’t deny it that B.Tech is sufficient

to  acquire a job  in core  but you need a

specialization if you want to grow in this sector.

Your promotions are saturated after some time

if you don’t have any specialized degree so in a

way, post­graduation does makes a difference

here.

Any personal message or tips for the freshman 

who will be preparing for their job interviews?

Try for a specific field (Core or Non­core), have

clear view about what you want to do. Never

try  to  get  a job  just  for  the  sake of  placing

earlier. Wait for right firm no matter when you

get place. I got placed in February but I never

regretted that.

For almost past two years, I have been working 

on  development  and then improvement  of

high strength concrete under the guidance of 

Prof.  Prakash Nanthagopalan.  I started  my 

work with an aim to develop self­compacting 

high strength concrete. This was the first phase 

of  the  project  and after working  for  about  6

months, I was awarded URA­01 and presented

research  paper  in  First International

Conference on Advanced Nanocomposite for

Construction Materials (ICNC  2013), Kerala, 

India in  March’13.  We  kept  on  improving 

strength  properties  of  the  concrete (till 130

MPa) and further after 6 months of  work,  I

presented another paper in International Civil

and  Infrastructure Engineering Conference 

(InCIEC  2013),  Kuching,  Malaysia  in 

September’13. This paper has been published 

in  conference  proceedings:

http://link.springer.com/chapter/10.1007/978

­981­4585­02­6_19

In  between these  two  conferences,  I got  an

opportunity to visit  HKUST,  Hong  Kong  as an 

intern in summers’13 where I worked on High

Strength Fiber Reinforced Concrete. I believe,

this  internship  was only  possible  since  I  had

some  background  working  in concrete

technology.

The second phase of the project is to improve 

its other properties such as flexural toughness, 

shrinkage,  improvement of  elastic  modulus 

and  rheology of  the  concrete. The idea  is  to 

include different  fibers  in  concrete  in varying

proportions  and  then study the above

mentioned properties. This  work is  being

counted as my B.Tech project (BTP I and II).

As  a message  to junior  batch students,  apart 

from gaining technical and practical knowledge 

in  the  field  you  work,  there  are  other  perks 

when you involve yourself  in research. I have

made  many industrial  contacts,  presented

papers (all at institute’s expenses �), secured

university internship and job in core company 

and if you want to apply for MS then research

as an UG will surely help you in improving your 

profile and chances of getting an admit.

I started working on transportation project

during my second year summers. My interest

in coding and inclination to explore a new

field pulled me towards the topic of modifying 

a US­based open source transportation 

simulation software namely TRANSIMS to

model traffic conditions in India. Our worked 

involved learning how simulation is used as a 

tool to model traffic, estimate travel demand 

and enact real life conditions. To get India 

specific simulation I worked on incorporating 

left­side traffic movement and introduction of 

new vehicle­types. My experience through the 

project helped me realize that research 

involves going from ‘what you know’ to ‘what 

you want to achieve’ with tools and reasons to 

learn at every step. I was awarded URA­01. 

Later in October’13, I also presented my paper 

in ‘Conference on Agent based Modelling in

Transportation Planning and Operations’­

Virginia Tech USA. My internship experience

at FCL­Singapore was also related to learning 

applications of simulation in transportation 

modelling and I continued my work on

improving the simulation model in TRANSIMS 

as my B.Tech project.

Key element I found responsible for a quality 

research is dedication to your interest and 

proper guidance. You learn from every

mistake you make and get far better practical

experiences than you would from a theory 

course. It gives you opportunity to interact

with several professionals in the field and also

add on value to your technical profile­

something valuable out of your study from a 

technical Institute like IIT­Bombay �

Mohit Mangal

(Batch of 2013)

Deputy Manager,

National Highway Authority of India,

NHAI

Dhawal Desai

Fourth year undergraduate

Research 

Scholars

Venktesh Pandey

Fourth year undergraduate

13                                                                                                                                                      BLUEPRINT: Newsletter of Civil Engineering Department, IIT Bombay   

Please  give a  brief  introduction to Team

Shunya, with a specific focus on the long­term

goals and ideologies.

The idea of Team Shunya arose  from a few 

enthusiastic  students who wanted  to 

participate  in  Solar  Decathlon  Europe  (SDE)

2014 which is an international competition to

design,  build and  operate  a  solar  powered 

house.  In  December,  they approached  Prof. 

Rangan Banerjee (Dept. of Energy Science and 

Engineering) who encouraged them to submit

a  technical  proposal.  Based  on  this  proposal, 

Team  Shunya  was selected  to  be  among  the 

top  20  teams  allowed  to  participate  in  the

competition in  2014.  When  I  joined  the 

institute in November 2012, I was approached 

by these students to become part of this effort, 

and I gladly joined. 

Team Shunya is  a  team of about 70  students

and 12 professors from IIT Bombay and Rachna

Sansad  Academy  of  Architecture. This is  an

ideal mix  of talent  for a  competition such as

SDE.  This is  essentially  a  student­led

competition, and faculty serves  as advisors.

The different disciplines involved in this effort 

are Architecture & Planning, Civil, Mechanical,

Photo­voltaic,  Instrumentation,  Building 

Modelling, Sustainability,  Communications, 

Management,  Sponsorship,  Operations  and 

Market Viability.

What is your role at Team Shunya?

I  am  the  Communications  Faculty Advisor

responsible  for  advising on events,  education

about green buildings and sustainability, media

/ press interactions and other public relations

events  for spreading awareness about

sustainability.  The  competition  requires  that 

the  learning  from  this  exercise  be  integrated

into the educational curriculum, which I have 

done  through  the  two  courses that  I  have 

introduced  at  IIT  Bombay– CE639: Green

Building  Design  and  CE649:  Introduction  to 

Urban Design.  In  these courses, my  students 

have done hands­on projects related to green 

buildings and urban sustainability.

I  am  also responsible  for  advising  student 

teams about  internal communications among

team  members  to  ensure  healthy  working 

environment and transparency in operations. 

Since my background is in architecture, urban

design and planning and I have worked in the 

field of sustainability, I am advising students in 

the overall project direction as well.

Please  tell  us  about  why  you chose  this

particular project.

Before  coming  to  IITB,  I was working  in  the

Department of City Planning in New York City 

where I was leading projects related to Urban

Sustainability and  Green  Building  Design.

Hence, I felt that I could contribute to the team

in these aspects. Also, I enjoy working in inter­

disciplinary  teams, as I  believe  that  is  when

new  and  interesting  solutions  emerge  to

complex problems.

How much has Team Shunya accomplished till

now? 

The project began in Dec 2012 after the team 

was selected to participate in the competition. 

Since then the team has come a long way. The 

competition will  be held in  Versailles, France 

during the months of June­July 2014. We are 

required to construct the house in 10 days at 

Versailles and disassemble  it  in 5 days. There 

are  ten  different competitions  (hence 

Decathlon)  on  the  basis  on which  each  team 

will  be judged.  These  are, Architecture,

Engineering & Construction, Energy Efficiency,

Electrical Energy Balance, Comfort Conditions

House  Functioning,  Communications  and 

Social  Awareness,  Urban Design, 

Transportation  &  Affordability,  Innovation, 

Sustainability.

Until now, team has submitted four updates of

the project to the organizers and visited France

twice, in March and November 2013. The team

is looking at this opportunity to come up with a 

building  prototype  that can  address the 

housing and energy needs of India. We are also 

addressing  the  urban  context  in  which  this 

house will be built in Indian cities, and for this

purpose,  we  are  trying to  evaluate  how

sustainable townships  can  be developed 

looking at resource efficiency, market viability, 

economic efficiency  of  a  transit  oriented 

development.  We  have  chosen  the  town  of

Uran which lies on the Delhi Mumbai Industrial 

Corridor (DMIC) for this purpose. 

Currently the house is under construction in IIT

Bombay. The house inauguration is scheduled

for March 13, 2014. All other systems such as

Solar PV, Solar thermal, instrumentation, solar 

oven  are being  tested in parallel  in  the  labs.

After  the  inauguration,  we  will  monitor  the 

various aspects of resource consumption in the 

house until the end of March. The disassembly

will  start around  first  week  of  April  and  the 

house will  be  shipped  to France around April

10, 2014. 

We  expect  the  disassembled  house to reach 

France a few weeks before the competition. A 

team of 30 members will be going to France in

June­July to  assemble and disassemble the 

house  and participate in  various other

activities. Details  about  the  competition  and 

Team  Shunya  can  be  found  on  the  following 

websites:                        

http://www.solardecathlon2014.fr/en/  

https://www.facebook.com/SDE2014Shunya

http://teamshunya.in/

What  do you think  are  the  long­term

implications and impacts that this project will

have after the competition is over?

Among the team, we have discussed the long

term goals once this competition is over. Some

of  the  ideas  that  we will  be  exploring  in  the 

next few months are below:

­ Reconstruction  of  the  house  in  IIT

Bombay  or  other  appropriate  sites  in 

the country to showcase `Green living’.

The house could be used as a regular 

accommodation  unit  that  will  be 

monitored over a period of  few years 

to  verify  and  validate the  energy

simulations during the design phase. 

­ The house could also become a green 

building laboratory where experiments

on  green building materials,

construction technologies  and  other 

such hands­on  research experiments 

can be done.

­ Extend this single story prototype to a

ground plus three storied building that

is  sustainable  and could be 

experimented  as housing  for army 

personnel  (as  suggested by Dr. Satish

Agnihotri, Secretary, MNRE).

HUDCO and many other government bodies, as 

well  as industries, have shown interest  in 

various aspects of this plan. 

For  the  urban  context,  the  team  envisions

creating  guidelines  for sustainable  and 

affordable townships that will be coming up in

next  few decades. This will  help urbanizing 

India  to grow sustainably, minimizing the use

of resources and improving the quality of life in 

urban areas.

Is there anything specific about Team Shunya that you would like to mention to our readers?

My hope  is  that we  continue  participating in 

this  competition  in the  coming years. Team 

Shunya  ­ the  first  ever  Indian  team  to

participate in this competition is documenting

the whole process and also training 2nd and 3rd

year students so that they can take the lead in

the coming years. I wish the team all the best 

in this endeavor.

Solar Decathlon, 2014 –Team Shunya� Rounaq Basu

Prof. Monika Jain

Communication Faculty Incharge,

Team Shunya

14                                                                                                                                                      BLUEPRINT: Newsletter of Civil Engineering Department, IIT Bombay   

NATIONAL GEOTECHNICAL CENTRIFUGE FACILITY

SUDARSHAN, a geotechnical centrifuge facility

installed at IIT Bombay is in an exclusive facility

present in  India.  It  is basically  a  physical 

modelling facility and its conceptualization was

started  in late 1980s and was awarded  to  IIT

Bombay in 1994 amidst of several bids by other

premier  institutes  of  the  nation.  The

technology  was nurtured  with the  original 

Russian  technology  which  was developed  in

1936.  The  centrifuge  laboratory  is  operable

since 2001­2002  and so far has completed

many national and international projects. 

Likewise the other physical modeling which are

concerned  with  replicating  a  process or  a

phenomenon in a reduced scale version of the 

prototype,  Sudarshan  also replicates many 

geotechnical  phenomenon  and  is  used  for 

studying the behavior of  soil  by  carrying  out

simulations. Geotechnical structures are solely 

dependent upon the  soil  properties

underneath which are basically driven by the 

nature of  the  stresses present  there.  In 

centrifuge modeling, basically a model is  spin 

such that it experiences a gravitational force of

extremely  large  magnitude  which  simulates 

the  field stress condition of  the prototype on

the model. Centrifuge modeling technique is a

revolutionary technology and is very handy in

the  situations when  it  is  impossible to create 

the  actual  site  conditions  in  the  laboratory

some of those cases being when the size of the 

prototype cannot be produced at the lab or in

the case  if unknown likeliness of occurrences

(landslides/earthquakes) etc.

For the testing purposes, the model is scaled by

1  by  N times  and  the  gravitational  force  is 

increased by N times (N = scale factor or gravity 

level). By doing  so,  the  test results gives

satisfactorily  the same results  as they  are

expected  in the  field  conditions. Centrifuge

modeling is now firmly  established  as a 

dependable research  tool  that can provide 

solutions  to many  of the  hitherto  intractable

problems in geotechnical engineering.  

Applications: There  are many  applications  of 

the  Centrifuge  modeling  in  the  current 

scenario.  It  can  be used as  a  design  aid  thus 

many  new  phenomenon/concepts/ideas can

be  tested  well  versed  before  materializing 

them and  using  them in  the  fields.  The

centrifuge is especially helpful for modeling of 

any  large­scale  nonlinear  problem  for  which 

gravity is a primary driving force. It can be used

to  understand the  reasons/causes  behind

certain natural events such as earthquakes or

landslides as the occurrence of these events is

uncertain and by generating similar conditions

for the test purposes, the future scope to face

such calamities  can be  understood. Other

applications includes the  validation  of 

numerical models as for the establishment of

any new model, it is necessary to first verify it 

experimentally and then only transform it into

any computational software. Also bymimicking

the actual  site conditions, it  is very helpful  in

assessing  the  root  cause  of  failure  of  any 

geotechnical  structure  and  study  a variety  of

geotechnical  problems  such as the  strength,

stiffness  and  capacity  of  foundations  for 

bridges and  buildings,  settlement  of 

embankments, stability of  slopes,  earth

retaining  structures, tunnel  stability and 

seawalls etc. 

Facility@ IIT Bombay: The facility we have here­SUDARSHAN, is the biggest at this part of the world  and  is  the  lone  facility  in  the  entirenation. It was jointly sponsored  by  theDepartment of  Science  and Technology,Defense  Research  and  Development Organization  and  the  Ministry of  HumanResource Development, India & currently is inthe supervision of Prof. B.V.S. Viswanadham.The indigenously built beam type configuration 

has a radius of 4.5 m and a capacity of 250 g­

tons.  The maximum gravitational  field 

developed  is 200g at a payload of 0.625 tons

and the maximum payload capacity  is 2.5 ton 

at an acceleration of 100g. The entire range of

the acceleration is from 10g to 200g.

The  facility has already  completed many

projects out of which a few were international 

and is serving the ATC Policy i.e. Analyze­Test­

Construct policy of the government. Currently

it is working on a project from ONGC and is also 

getting into a kind of collaboration with other 

premier  institutes of  the country  to carry out 

more  researches  using  the  technology.  The

most  influential  challenge  is  the  installation 

and commissioning of IN­FLiGHT EARTHQUALE

ACTUATOR  which  simulates  a  variety  of 

earthquake profiles and then the susceptibility 

of  geotechnical  structures  to these 

earthquakes will be the course of observation.

ENVIRONMENT GEOTECHNICAL LAB

The Environmental Geotechnology Laboratory 

at  IITB  is one  of  its  kind in  the  country that

serves  research  in  both environmental  and 

geotechnical  aspects. The  fundamental  and

practical  issues  are being  studied in  every 

aspect through field testing, laboratory testing

and  mathematical modeling. This dream 

project  of  Professor  D.N.Singh came  into

existence  in 2001  at  IIT  Bombay. This 

laboratory  also collaborates  with  industries

and  other  partners for delivering some 

significant results in the practical world out. 

Geoenvironmental  Engineering  Research:The

lab is dedicated to carry out the research work 

on geomaterials with respect to their physical, 

hydraulic, mechanical and chemical properties

thus serving an interdisciplinary purposes. The

associated  research work  involves 

development of  new solutions and 

technologies for both traditional Geotechnical

engineering and the emerging 

Geoenvironmental engineering problems. The

laboratory has developed a special expertise to 

address problems  like  contaminated  sites,

waste  disposal  and waste 

minimization/prevention, landfills, utilization 

of fly ash & many more.  A few projects have 

been completed  by Prof.  D.N. Singh who is 

been  assisted  by  a number  of  research

scholars. The lab also carries out some research 

work  which  are  been funded  by  the private 

industrial sector.  Currently,  a  comprehensive

research project is in under study to assess the 

performance of  self­sustainable  bioreactor

landfills to accelerate  the  degradation  of 

municipal solid  waste and  develop  rational 

design  methods.  A  site  of  such  bioreactor 

landfill is present within the IIT Campus itself.

Another  significant  research  includes  the 

investigation on gases  released  from hydrate

bearing  sediments, which includes evaluation 

of  water  permeability and  sea floor  stability 

during the production of gas. 

Now­a­days we are missing a crunch of  good

engineering practices in our country. This is the 

first  lab  to  focus  on  several  parameters of 

environmental  aspects  and  the problems 

associated with  them  and tries to  determine

their solution  which fits  well under  the 

ecological and economical perspective. This lab 

also runs  an international Journal 

Environmental  Geotechnics,  ICE Publishing, 

London, UK. 

Only @ Civil, IIT B� Abhideep Sahu� Aakanksha Uday

Centrifuge Lab Facility, IIT Bombay

Our sincere thanks to Prof. B.V.S. Viswanadham and Prof. D.N.Singh & his students for their inputs.

15                                                                                                                                                      BLUEPRINT: Newsletter of Civil Engineering Department, IIT Bombay   

What marks the beginning of a phenomenon?

Everything begins with an idea and once a mind 

is stretched by a new idea, it can never regain 

its original dimensions. But as it is truly said “A 

person with a new idea is a crank until the idea

succeeds”. The question is, what a person must 

do  to  achieve that  success?  The  answer  is 

simple, to transform that idea into a reality, its 

necessary to take up the challenges, adapting

them in our life and live on it to succeed. Such 

has been  the  dedication of  people  behind 

Aakaar 2014. The journey of Aakaar has been 

nothing less than a fairy tale. From a bunch of 

like­minded students, the fest has grown into a

nationwide event.

This  year Aakaar took place on 8th and 9th of

March. Around 800 people from different parts

of the country came to IIT Bombay to be a part 

of the festival resulting in a fourfold increase in

the  footfall. It was indeed a  pleasure  to

witness the zeal and the dedication of each and

every participant. Every event witnessed fierce

competition and a huge turnout. 

Competitions

The competitions component in Aakaar took a

huge  leap forward  with unprecedented

increase  in participation  and  marked

improvements  in  the organization  of

competitions.  A  pre­fest  competition  of 

“LOGIQ”, an online crypt hunt set the stage for

things  to  follow. On  the  day  of  Aakaar,  even

Hall 4 proved to be insufficient to conduct the

“BRIDGE IT” competition which saw a Popsicle 

structure  taking  a load of  200 kilograms. A 

total of 66 teams participated  in it with each

and every single  specimen being  a symbol of

sheer  hard  work  and innovation.  Pervious 

concrete  design  competition  was introduced

for  the  first time  at  Aakaar.  The competition

turned out to be a huge success with more than

25 teams participating in the event and it won’t 

be wrong to quote that “People did conquered

the concrete”.  “On  the  street”  competitions

made  the  participants  rack  their brains  on  a

challenging transportation  problem  whereas

“Potential Prof.” gave the students to be on the 

other side of the table and teach topics in a way

they would like  to  be  taught. “CIVIQ”  – Civil 

Engineering  quiz  competition was a modeled

on popular quiz shows held internationally and 

left the  participants and audience  thrilled at

the audio­visual effects  incorporated  into  the 

quiz and the innovative questions posed to the 

finalists.  A contingent system  was also

introduced this  year  which pitted  colleges

against each other among all the competitions

mentioned  previously.  These competitions 

were one of their kind and were appreciated by 

all.

6th National Symposium The research symposium held in Aakaar 2014

witnessed research paper presentations  from

all over the country. A major breakthrough this

year  was the  participation  of  IIT  Bombay 

students  which  more  than  tripled  from  last 

year.  The judges  were impressed  with  the 

improvement in the quality of research being

presented  in the  Symposium  over  the years. 

Some  elements  of international  conferences 

were  also incorporated in the form  of

customized badges and notepads  to continue 

with the trend of  major  improvements  that

have taken place since the event’s inception 5 

years ago. The amount of efforts given by the 

AAKAAR  team does set up a bar  for  the next 

year’s team.

Events 

The festival was graced by Mr. Himanshu Raje 

and  Mr.  C.  M. Dordi,  both  pioneers  in  their

respective specializations. The lectures  given

by them were highly insightful and drew huge

crowds. A seven hour workshop on STAAD PRO 

was a  huge hit  with more  than a hundred 

participants. Enthusiastic civil engineering 

students  were  satisfied  with the 

comprehensive coverage of basic  STAAD PRO

concepts done in the workshop. Students were 

also introduced  to  “TEKLA”,  a  3D modeling 

software used recently in the modeling of the 

New  Terminal  of  the  Mumbai  International 

Airport.  A  lab  visit  was also arranged  to

Sudarshan: The  National  Geotechnical

Centrifuge Facility. It left the attendees elated

on  having  been  presented  an opportunity to 

visit  a  lab which is  the  first  of  its  kind  in  the 

country.

Overall Aakaar 2014  turned out  to be a huge 

success.  Be it  the  Publicity,  Symposium, 

Competitions,  Web  or  Hospitality team,

everyoneworked out of their skins to make this 

happen.  Aakaar  2014 was  hence  a successful 

endeavor by a team of students who worked all

year long to make this event successful and to

realize  the  vision  with which  Aakaar  was

started six years back. As Aakaar  is growing

every year, the vision for next year is to take 

it to the international level, so that not only 

students  from  India but from all over  the 

world can becomes a part of Aakaar to share

their knowledge and compete on a common 

platform.  We  leave  this vision  onto our

juniors who will make the  team for  Aakaar

2015 and take the baton forward.

Highlights of AAKAAR 2014

� Footfall increases fourfold

� Reintroduction  of  Lecture  Series and 

Industrial Design Problems (IDP)

� Introduction of fresh competitions like

Conquer It and Maze

� Makeover of the CiviQ pattern

� Introduction of New Workshops

AAKAAR 2014

� Prateek Deogekar

� Amar Sinha

Snapshots

20                                                                                                                                                        BLUEPRINT: Newsletter of Civil Engineering Department, IIT Bombay

SENTIENCE: A CEA Initiative

Edition 3

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