Although some engineering education institutions ” notably the IITs ” enjoy great national and even offshore reputations, India™s 3,400 engineering institutes have not been able to produce graduates technically equipped to conceptualise and execute monumental engineering projects EDUCATIONWORLD™S second rating and ranking league tables of India™s most highly regarded non-IIT engineering colleges are being published against a grim backdrop of sustained low annual rates of jobless industrial growth. For almost three years consecutively, the official index of industrial production has been almost static. According to T.N. Ninan, consulting editor of the Business Standard, the industrial production index was 170.3 in 2011-12. œTwo years later, the index for the first 11 months of 2013-14 stands fractionally lower, at 170.0. If we go by the index, we have had zero industrial growth compared to two years ago. The manufacturing sub-sector of ˜industry™ has seen zero growth or a fall in output in 15 of the last 24 months, he writes (BS, April 19). Moreover, the country™s current account deficit (goods and services imports minus exports) which had widened to 6.5 percent of GDP in 2011-12, and according to Union finance minister P. Chidambaram has been reduced to 2.3 percent in the period April-December 2013, is testimony to the preference of domestic consumers for foreign manufactured goods over Indian brands. A host of factors including policy paralysis and backtracking on the country™s economic liberalisation and deregulation programme begun in 1991, during the Congress-led UPA-II government™s second five-year term in office ” apart from loss of competitive capability of India™s engineers in industry and manufacturing ” could be contributory causes of the decline in industrial growth momentum. Yet the ground reality that the Indian market is flooded with imports ” which can™t be banned because of WTO (World Trade Organisation) treaty obligations ” ranging from chocolates, to automobiles and heavy industry equipment, is visible proof of the uncompetitiveness of Indian industry and its declining engineering capability. Better proof is provided by the defence services which are wholly dependent upon imported equipment and armaments. An indigenously developed jet fighter, tank and aircraft carrier have been in the works for decades without much to show for heavy investment. Quite clearly, although some engineering education institutions ” especially the six pioneer Indian Institutes of Technology (the first of which (IIT-Kharagpur) was established in 1951 with Soviet assistance) and whose number has since grown to 16 ” have great national and even offshore reputations, India™s 3,400 engineering colleges/universities have not been able to produce graduates technically equipped to conceptualise and execute monumental engineering projects (except perhaps in space engineering) which attract global headlines. On the other hand, engineers in other countries, even newly-emergent nations, have successfully executed projects of great ingenuity and expertise which have not only stunned the world, but also hugely benefited their economies. For instance in recent years, British engineers have built a railway under the English channel which has connected the European mainland with the British Isles. A similar rail link under the Bosphorus…
