Dear Smriti Irani, stop giving my money to IITians
If IITians are so intelligent and can earn lakhs in their placements, why do they sponge off taxpayers' money?
Dear Smt Smriti Iraniji,
At the drop of a hat, every government, including yours, says that subsidies are bad for the economy and should be done away with.
Many of the subsidies in your ministry are going to those who don't deserve it. IITians are the most guilty of this pilferage. To make things worse, they hardly do anything for the country. Best-selling fiction is not known to help farmers.
1) To begin with, this is what they cost usWhile it takes over Rs 3.4 lakh to educate an IITian per year, the student pays only Rs 90,000 per year. The rest is borne by the government. That is close to Rs 2.5 lakh per student per year, which is being paid by the tax payer. If one extrapolates this to all the 39,540 students in the Indian Institute of Technologies, the cost borne by the tax payer on educating IITians extends to 988.5 crore annually.
According to budget estimates, Rs 1703.85 crore is to be allocated to the IITs for 2015-'16.
2) What do we get in return for the Rs 1,700 crore we spend on them?Inspite of producing 9,885 world-class engineers in computer science, electrical, electronic, chemical, mechanical, production fields every year...
a) The Geosynchronous Satellite Launch Vehicle, though successful with the Russian Cryogenic Engine, has time and again failed with the indigenous cryogenic engine. We have succeeded only once with our indigenous cryogenic rocket.
b) Indigenous submarines are still a distant dream because of the technological complexity in building them. Though many projects are coming up in our own shipyards, they are happening because we are merely manufacturing them in India with foreign technology.
c) The indigenous Indian Small Arms System rifles for our army, developed by the Defence Research and Development Organisation, have always been reported as problematic, and we import assault rifles from Israel.
Why could our world-class engineers, who are educated with tax payers' money, not have built them?
3) This is what our top IITians gave a missA Right to Information application that was filed recently has shown that less than 2% of engineers at the Indian Space Research Organisation are from IITs and the National Institutes of Technology. Our best space programme doesn't get our best engineers every year.
The army doesn't get engineers and officers from the IITs. Between 1986 and 2006, not a single IITian has joined the Indian army.
The DRDO has a shortage of more than 2,700 scientists, and it is stretched and overworked, but our world-class engineers don't find it challenging.
4) If an IITian wants to run an online shop, then why do I, a taxpayer, have to pay for his chemical engineering degree?Going by 2013 figures, Flipkart, the online mega-store, recruited seven students from IIT Madras in 2013.
One can understand the logic behind Flipkart hiring a computer science engineer. But six of the hires had studied aerospace, chemical, metallurgy, bio-technology and engineering physics. What specialist knowledge will they bring to Flipkart?
These students do not have any interest in what they learnt in their four-year undergraduate programme, and want to erase their history by moving to a different field.
5) Why did I pay for Chetan Bhagat's mechanical engineering degree?I have nothing against Chetan Bhagat, but I do know that Indian taxpayers paid to make him a mechanical engineer. He has done everything but engineering.
Another RTI filed with IIM Bangalore has revealed that out of the current batch of 406 students, 97 students are from IITs. Fifty-six of these are students with less than two years work experience.
If all these engineers wanted to be was managers, why does the tax payer need to pay for their engineering education at the IITs?
6) Get a loan, why seek a subsidy?All students from IITs can get collateral-free loans from nationalised banks for upto Rs 20 Lakh.
And IITians are obviously so awesome that companies are eager to pay them crores of rupees.
Then why should a world-class engineer who makes crores of rupees and adds no value to India be given a subsidised education at the IITs? Can't they get educated with a bank loan of their own and repay it after getting their huge salaries?
7) Remittances help forex? Nope, not really.Whenever there is a debate on brain drain from the IITs, the remittances issue pops up. Many believe that IITians who go abroad send back remittances and contribute to foreign exchange reserves. However, it is a pittance for India.
A report in the Economic Times shows that out of the total remittances of $70 billion to India, the remittances from IITians who go to developed countries is much lower than the remittances from the Middle East to the state of Kerala.
Most of the Malayalis in the Gulf are blue-collar workers, not IIT engineers.
So, why should the common man subsidise an IITian's college fees?
No, Smriti Irani is not wasting your money on the IITians
Joining issue with an earlier piece that argued against subsidies to 'those who don't deserve it'.
1) Not into Space/Defence research? Your education is uselessThe author argues that just because India has been unsuccessful in some three space and defence technologies – cryogenics engines, submarines, and assault rifles – IITians are a waste of taxpayer money. This argument betrays the ill-conceived notions that he seems to hold about technology in today’s world. It is equivalent to my grandmother claiming that I’m a useless engineer because I cannot repair the air conditioner. Science and technology is much more than rockets and missiles.
Even in defence and space research, failure to indigenously develop a technology that can otherwise be easily imported says nothing about technological development in the country. Whenever it has not been possible to easily import such technology, India has stepped up. Indigenous development of nuclear weapons and the Mars and lunar missions are a testament to that spirit.
2) The meaning of contributionThe author also has a deeply mistaken view of what it means to contribute to a country. The author argues that IITians are not contributing anything to the country because they are not joining the Indian Space Research Agency and the Defence Research and Development Organisation in satisfactory numbers. Ironically, the author takes a dig at Chetan Bhagat and others, saying, “Best-selling fiction is not known to help farmers.” Sadly, missiles and submarines don’t help farmers either.
To be sure, it is disappointing that ISRO and DRDO are unable to attract the best talent in the country. However, it is not just the fault of the IITians. People go where the opportunities are. The solution is to make the opportunities in space and defence research more lucrative – not force unwilling engineers to settle for something they are not interested in, when they could do better.
3) Chemical engineers in Flipkart? Traitors!Our education system is designed such that we expect high school students to decide once and for all what they want to do in their life. But, they do not have enough information to be able to make that choice. Interestingly, many of my friends in chemical engineering were quite surprised to learn that it isn’t really about much chemistry. Yet, we routinely admit 17-year-olds into specialised degree programmes and expect them to stick to it for life.
The founders of Flipkart didn’t want to do any chemical engineering. Instead they went on to create a great online retail company that satisfied a gaping need in the Indian economy. They have also created numerous jobs in the process. In my opinion, they have contributed much more to the Indian economy than a typical chemical engineer in a chemical plant ever would.
What role did IITs play in their journey, though? It provided them with the right environment and the right set of tools to be able to successfully execute their ideas. Many of my entrepreneur friends would agree. Education is holistic, not confined to narrow pockets.
4) IITians are not sponging off taxpayersSince IITians are successful in their professional life, the author is enraged that the taxpayers contributed to their education. They can earn lakhs in their placements, so why are they sponging off taxpayers, the author asks.
What he failed to consider is the fact that IITians are also taxpayers. By being more economically successful than an average taxpayer, IITians also end up more tax. Here's a quick back-of-the-envelope calculation – even with a modest salary of 10 lakh per annum, paying roughly 20% in income tax, the taxpayers' subsidy is cleared off in five years. A fancy salary of one crore, which seems to have enraged the author very much, can clear off the subsidy in around six months.
One can argue that paying taxes is their duty, irrespective of the subsidy. It indeed is. However, they would not be earning as much, and the government would not be generating that extra tax revenue, if it were not for the education that they received.
5) Other subsidies and spending?Being libertarian and shouting down taxes and subsidies all together would be logical and consistent. However, a selective grudge against subsidies for higher education doesn’t make any sense. Why spend on healthcare? Why spend on primary education? What use is educating first graders? The government needs to spend on education because, ultimately, a well-educated population is good for the progress of a country, and all levels of education are important.
This is not to say that there is no other way to fund higher education. However, if subsidies encouraged even one more person to get educated, that money is still well spent.
Note: I have given the benefit of doubt to the author that all data quoted is accurate, without independently verifying it.
Dear IITians, how successful have you been in making India self-reliant in technology?
Can students of the country's premier institutes claim to have started high-tech industries in the aeronautics or telecom-equipment manufacturing sectors?
A recent article about whether IITians need subsidy for their education has triggered an intense debate on how much IITians have actually helped the nation.
After Independence, it was Pandit Jawaharlal Nehru who spearheaded the establishment of the Indian Institutes of Technology to provide trained technical personnel of international calibre to the nation. These men and women, it was hoped, would grow to become leaders in technology for newly independent India.
India hoped that the IIT system would, over time, be instrumental in creating "scientists and technologists who would engage in research, design and development to help make the nation towards self-reliance in her technological needs
Now, let us see how IITians have served this purpose of making the nation self-reliant in some critical areas.
1) It is not just one or two defence or aerospace projects in which India is falling behind
If you look at the entire fleet of Indian Air Force, how many of the technologies that we currently possess have been developed indigenously? Not a single squadron of our airforce, which has around 34 squadrons, contains indigenous jets.
Even our indigenously developed fighter jets don't fly on our own jet engines. The radars on our fighter jets aren't indigenous. The Airborne Early Warning and Control System that are developed don't have a 360 degree Active Electronic Scanned Array Radar. (It contains a Brazilian plane with Indian electronics).
It's not just one or two technologies: thrust vector nozzles, fly-by-wire technology, jet engines, radars, are all imported. Even the tyres for aircrafts were imported until recently.
We do not have a single private aeronautical company in our country that develops fighter aircraft. Even the jet training aircraft for the airforce are imported – basic trainers from Pilatus, Advanced Jets from BAE systems. This costs us a lot of foreign exchange.
2) How much of our Army is indigenous?
How many of our artillery systems are indigenously developed? Why is it that not a single artillery gun was developed in India till 2013? Why is it that the indigenously developed assault rifles face such huge problems? Why is it that we import even the communication systems for the armed forces?
When terrorists attacked the army camp in Kaluchak in 2002, killing 32, mostly women and children of army officers, our forces were unable to retaliate because they didn't have laser-guided bombs or night vision pods, and were waiting for them to be dispatched from Israel.
If one looks at the headlines in newspapers, like HC asks MOD response on INSAS Rifle, Delays hit Indo-Israel anti-missile systems; Army,Air Force vulnerable, one can understand the problems plaguing the armed forces. I wish the IITians would read newspapers once in a while.
By the simplistic logic one IITian had suggested, why waste money and time on something that can be easily imported. But how do you ensure that your forces are war-ready all the time with imported weapons?
3) How much of our Navy is indigenous?
How many of our naval ships and submarines are indigenously developed, without foreign technology and collaboration? We import Surface-to-Air Missiles for our ships from Israel. We import engines for our indigenously developing aircraft carriers from companies like GE. We are still scouting for utility helicopters for the Indian Navy. We still do not possess the capability to build our own submarines.
While we are mired in bureaucratic procedures and age-old policies for the development and procurement of weapon systems, our armed forces have been crying for spares of these weapons systems.
We did not have the capability to make steel for our war machines until recently, and instead, we are happy that our best metallurgical engineers work in a company (started by IITians) that sells goods online.
4) RAW has a critical shortage of technical officers
We are the largest exporter of software and software engineers in the world, and yet, the Research and Analysis Wing, which is our external intelligence agency, has a shortfall of 30% of the sanctioned crypt analysts, according to a report in The Hindu.
Our best engineers, working in places like Facebook and Google, would rather secure those networks than making India stronger in tackling terror, and cyber espionage.
5) How many of our telecommunication systems are indigenous?
We have a great telecommunication industry in India, but why is it that even a single telecommunication system isn't indigenous? Why does it give the government jitters to import Chinese telecom products from manufacturers like Huawei and ZTE? Do we have indigenous manufacturers with the calibre of the likes of CISCO, Ericsson, Alcalet-Lucent, Avaya or Juniper in India? The answer is an emphatic “no”. And yet, our IITians work in these companies and make them better each day.
Why can’t our best engineers create such industries in India?
6) How much of our electrical equipment is indigenous?
How self-reliant is India in electrical equipment manufacturing? We still import power generators for our power plants. According to this report, out of the 48,000 MW of power generation capacity during the 11th Five Year plan, we have imported equipment for more than 18,000 MW of power generation.
As many experts will tell you, indigenisation is vital for our critical infrastructure.
7) How many of the electronic chips used in India are indigenous?
Electronic chips were the second-most highly valued imported items in the year 2013, second only to petroleum products. India imported electronic chips worth $100 billion in 2013, and by 2020, these imports are going to be more than $400 billion, surpassing the petroleum imports.
So next time, before giving an analysis of how much value IITians have created for the Indian economy, one should also analyse on how much value is lost because IITians haven't met their mandate of making the country self-reliant in technology.
Here are some points I'd like to reiterate:
http://scroll.in/article/723670/dear-iitians-how-successful-have-you-been-in-making-india-self-reliant-in-technology
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