Engineering colleges (continued)
In my days, there were only four government Engineering Colleges in the then composite Madras presidency comprising the present Tamil Nadu, Andhra, part of Karnataka and Odisha minus the princely states. In the present Tamil Nadu area, there were only five engineering colleges, 3 private and 2 Government. Today there are 525 colleges in all in Tamil Nadu alone. Thus there has been a phenomenal growth of Engineering colleges and supporting polytechnics. With the construction of massive dams, industrialisation and the Hydro electric, mechanical and power projects introduced by Nehru, our need for technicians and technologists have grown multifold. The first Engineering college to be established in our country was the one at Roorke followed by the college of Engineering, Guindy which now constitutes the principal seat of Anna University. The purpose of these engineering colleges was not to enrich our land and people but to serve the British interests which incidentally and inadvertently served the needs of the people. In our days, professional college admissions were governed by what was then referred to as "Communal G.O", a rule of reservation based on the ratio of the population to the whole, a rule implemented during the justice party regime, the predecessor of the Dravidian parties of today. The BE selection was very tough and there were very few seats available for forward caste students even on those days.The first branch of engineering introduced was civil engineering, since for any development that was the basic requirement. In the initial days, since most of the graduates were in great demand in the field, it was difficult to procure teachers for the profession. The great opportunity for engineers in the beginning was in the field of civil engineering. In my college days the popular branches of engineering were civil, mechanical and electrical. Later telecommunication was added, but there were not many takers. The total output of engineering graduates was around 1500 only. There was a severe dearth of teaching staff since most of the graduates were not willing to teach. Even if some freshers come as members of teaching faculty, it was just a stop gap arrangement and won't stick on to teaching. So field engineers with no teaching experience or talent were deputed as lecturers and professors to the colleges. Not many engineering books by Indian authors were available then. The limited number of available books by foreign authors were too costly. But students going on strike. For any reason was unknown then. Ragging of new comers was practised religiously with all seriousness which every new candidate had to undergo as an anointment ceremony and there was no question of anyone escaping it.
( Continued)
