IIT Guwahati poised to get new director
Professor Gautam Biswas, currently the
director of Central Mechanical Engineering and Research Institute
(CMERI) Durgapur, is tipped to become the next director of IIT Guwahati.
Biswas will
replace Professor Gautam Barua, whose tenure as the director ended
yesterday. Barua served in the top position for 10 years.
A search-cum-selection panel headed by human resource development minister M.M. Pallam Raju has selected Biswas for the job.
President Pranab
Mukherjee, who is the visitor of the institute, will have to clear the
appointment after which Biswas will get a five-year term as the
director, sources said.
Biswas has done
Masters and PhD from IIT Kharagpur. A faculty at IIT Kanpur, he has
served as the Dean (Academics) in IIT Kanpur. He has been serving as the
director of CMERI, a research lab of Council of Scientific and
Indust-rial Research (CSIR), since 2009.
The comparatively
younger IIT Guwahati is passing through a phase of development. Spread
over a huge campus, this institute has started exhibiting excellence in
teaching and research. The task before Biswas will be to take the
institute forward in both the areas.
Biswas was also a
contender for the post of director of IIT Kharagpur. But Professor P.P.
Chakrabarti was chosen for the post last year.
However,
Chakrabarti’s appointment has been mired in controversy, as the
vigilance wing has not yet given clearance in view of a pending case of
irregularity against him. Professor S.K. Som is currently the director
in-charge of IIT Kharagpur.
“I have done
whatever I could do best and work has to go on. I have been in various
administrative roles for the last 18 years, including the last 10 years
as a director,” Gautam Barua told “I cannot sing
my own achievements and it is for my colleagues to judge my work. One
person cannot be heading an institute forever and change has to happen.”
Barua in his last
convocation speech on June 8 had said a change is required and was
confident that the change will only take the institute forward. IIT
officials said Barua’s image and integrity was a “plus” point and added
that his ability to grasp things quickly had helped the institute a lot.
“No matter who
comes in next should not be having problems in taking the institute
forward as a system has been put in place,” an institute official said.
“We never had to worry about what will happen tomorrow as everything was taken care of by him,” another official said.
“He was a very unassuming person and was perha
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