June 2019 – The KGP Chronicle

Deans’ Conclave for International Outreach

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The PAN IIT Dean International Relations (IR) Conclave was held at IIT Kharagpur on June 28-29, 2019. Twelve IITs, represented by Deans and Executives of IR Offices, participated in the Conclave viz. Delhi, Bombay, Madras, Guwahati, Kanpur, Tirupathi, Mandi, Indore, Dhanbad, Roorkee, Palakkad and Kharagpur. Over two days the IITs deliberated on common challenges and processes towards attracting and admitting more international students, funding mechanisms, degree provisions, international collaborations and several more.

“The IITs and their alumni are probably the finest products coming out of India since independence. While each IIT pursues and attains excellence in its own way, we must remember that individually we are too small to make any sizeable impact globally. Together however, with about 1 lakh students and about 5000 faculty members, the 23 IITs are a sizeable bloc and can compete favourably with the largest university systems around the world. We therefore need to join forces and pursue internationalization in a synergistic manner,” said Prof. Baidurya Bhattacharya, Dean IR, IIT Kharagpur.

While JEE remains the only gateway available to anyone seeking admission into the IIT system’s flagship undergraduate programs, most IITs have created the mechanism for graduate admission for international students. There was a consensus on enhancing the outreach and information dissemination globally about Masters and Doctoral programs at IITs and promoting foreign admission opportunities. “This will require tapping into the already existing network of academicians and alumni in select countries,” opined Prof. Rakhi Chaturvedi, Dean, Alumni and External Relations, IIT Guwahati.

IIT (ISM) Dhanbad has also created an avenue for foreign undergraduate admission. “We have run a separate 5-year undergraduate programme exclusively for students in Afghanistan and African countries focused on Mining and Petroleum Engineering,” said Prof. Somnath Chattopadhyay, Associate Dean, IIT (ISM) Dhanbad.

The IITs further explored ways to make the selection process through ICCR scholarship schemes more streamlined and in alignment with the IIT admission criteria and timelines. These collective recommendations have been planned to be presented to ICCR for further discussion and consideration.

To ease out information availability and admission, Prof. Swati Patankar, Dean IR of IIT Bombay informed the gathering that a common application portal for joint admission of international students is underway.

The challenge of increasing diversity through international student admission was also discussed from the aspect global ranking of the IITs. In this regard, deliberations were made on the importance of an India-relevant definition of diversity. “We need diversity but we will have to evolve a definition consistent with our country’s ethos of language, culture and food. Our definition of diversity should look to bring diverse thinking to our student populace, including through the presence of international faculty and students,” said Prof. Mahesh Panchagnula, Dean International & Alumni Relations, IIT Madras.

The conclave also focused on global regions which could be potential academic partners of the IITs for international students. Bhutan, Nepal, Bangladesh, several countries in the ASEAN and Middle Eastern region, the African continent and Taiwan could be some of these regions. To take benefit of the competitive edge of academic disciplines in which the IITs excel, specific discipline oriented MoUs and agreements were also encouraged.

L to R: Baidurya Bhattacharya, Mahesh Panchagnula, Anandaroop Bhattacharya

Prof. Anandaroop Bhattacharya, Associate Dean, International Relations at IIT Kharagpur proposed setting up a PAN IIT consortia with similar consortia in countries like France, Germany, Japan etc.

A key aspect of internationalization is increasing the presence of international faculty. IIT Madras highlighted their approach of hiring fresh doctorate holding researchers on a 3-year contract as visiting international faculty staff to work at IIT Madras. This gives the Institute as well as the faculty the opportunity to mutually experience different lines of thinking and could lead to long-term engagement.

Sharing of best practices and networking between International Relations offices for coordination and outreach activities was also proposed. “Such initiatives would help third generation IITs and standardize some of the key operation procedures,” concluded Prof. K. N. Satyanarayana, Director, IIT Tirupati.

Kgpian@SCR

Kgpian K Siva Prasad took charge as Principal Chief Operations Manager, South Central Railway on June 25, 2019. Prasad did M.Sc. in Applied Geology from the Dept. of Geology and Geophysics at IIT Kharagpur in 1983. He belongs to the 1986 batch of Indian Railway Traffic Service (IRTS) officers.

Prior to this assignment, he was holding the post of Principal Chief Commercial Manager, South Central Railway. During his 32 years of service, he has held several important executive and managerial positions in various Zonal Railways. It was during his stint as Chief Freight Traffic Manager on SCR, that the Zone achieved “100 Million Tonnes” of freight loading for the first time in 2011-2012. He has also been instrumental in leveraging the Long Term Tariff Contract (LTTC) agreement with bulk cement transport rail customers for transportation of freight traffic at fixed rates, which saw its fruition with M/s UltraTech Cements, thereby giving a crucial boost to freight loading on the Zone.

Shri Prasad was nominated for a short-term assignment in Malaysia through Indian Railway Construction Company Limited (IRCON) on Safety Audit of Malaysian Railways.

With inputs from the press release issued by South Central Railway

Adding to the glory

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The Distinguished Alumnus Awards for 2019 has been announced by the Institute, and as many as 20 alumni will receive their DAA during the Convocation ceremony held every year in the month of August. The Distinguished Alumnus Award recognizes the professional achievements and contributions of IIT Kharagpur alumni.

Among the awardees are eminent scientists, industry experts, technocrats, and social activists, some of them pioneers in their respective fields and some even Padma Shri holders. Prof. Soumen Chakrabarti and Prof. Sunita Sarawagi of IIT Bombay, Prof. Ajoy Kumar Ray (Padma Shri) of IIEST, Shibpur, Prof. Ajit R. Shenoi, University of Southampton, Prof. Bulbul Chakraborty, Brandeis University, MA, USA, Prof. Anil K. Bhowmick, former Professor of Eminence, IIT Kharagpur, and now with the University of Houston are all senior academicians in some of the premier institutes in the world whose work is internationally recognized.

From the corporate sector, the awardee is Ronojoy Dutta, noted aviation expert who is currently the CEO of InterGlobe Aviation, which operates IndiGo Airlines. Dutta was President of United Airlines from 1999 to 2002.

There are also senior bureaucrats such as Prabhakar Singh, Director General, Central Public Works Department (CPWD), New Delhi, and G.C. Mitra, retired engineer-in-chief, government of Odisha, who is also a Padma Shri awardee. Mitra was associated with the construction of the cyclone shelters along the Odisha coast that have saved the lives of a large number of people of the state during several cyclones, including the recent Fani.

Commenting on the Distinguished Alumnus Award for 2019, Prof. Partha Pratim Chakrabarti, Director, IIT Kharagpur, said, “This adds to the list of so many personalities who have made us proud in many, ways. These cover academics, industry and corporate world, entrepreneurship, government service, social service, art and culture, etc. from India and abroad. Based on the recommendation of the Standing Committee the Chairman and Board of Governors have approved the names of the following for Distinguished Alumnus Award 2019.”

Two alumni whose contribution has shaped the education system at IIT Kharagpur have been selected for DAA this year. Shri Gopal Rajgarhia has contributed immensely to the internationalization of IIT Kharagpur by helping set up the Shri Gopal Rajgarhia International Program or SGRIP in 2014. Satinder Singh Rekhi has seed-funded the Rekhi Centre of Excellence for the Science of Happiness.

Prof. Subrata Chattopadhyay, Dean, Alumni Affairs, said, “IIT Kharagpur alumni have been the Institute’s brand ambassadors. They have also been the first in the IIT system to contribute back to IIT. Today we have more 10 centres of excellence funded by the alumni and each of them has been the harbinger of change.”

The list of awardees this year also include Rahul Banerjee, social activist and development researcher of the Mahila Jagat Lihaaz Samiti, Indore, and Om Prakash Khanna, Chairman and Managing Director, and President of companies like Schlafhorst Engg. India, who is also associated with the Needy Heart Foundation. Besides them, are Rear Admiral N.P. Gupta, Prof. Ganti Prasada Rao, who is listed in several biographical volumes such as Marquis Who’s Who in the World, and Bipul Sinha, Co-Founder & CEO of Rubrik, the world’s first cloud data management platform.

The art of tinkering

Summer is always a busy time at the M.N. Faruqui Innovations Centre. Established in 2014, the Centre is named after former Deputy Director and former faculty, Dr M.N. Faruqui, and seed-funded by the Institute’s distinguished alumnus Mr Arjun Malhotra, was conceived as a place where fresh undergraduate students could work, chat, discuss, and get hands dirty in the mechanical workshop or the wet lab setups. Students, even first year students, are encouraged to bring a project idea, have it ratified by some faculty, mentors and experts and then just begin experimenting to heart’s glory.

And they have, unfailingly. Prerit Gupta (2017/DD/CE) is one of the many who has worked at the Innovations Centre. Prerit used the facilities mostly in 2015-16. He was part of a three-member group working on ‘Autonomous Driving Guide’.

Prerit says, “We wanted to create a demo for cars – initially toy cars – through a combination of sonar and camera in order to give a 360 degree view to an autonomous vehicle so that it could gauge the distance of an obstacle. Most of the others work with LIDAR, which stands for Light Detection and Ranging, a remote sensing method that uses light in the form of a pulsed laser.”

Prof. Kumar (right) explaining a project

Prerit and his team mates, one drawn from Mechanical Engineering, the other from Electrical Engineering, did not complete their project. But that is not so important. He says, “For young students like us, it is very difficult to get funds. But we were very excited to get the opportunity to tinker around and at the same time get guidance from the professors. We had keys to the laboratory and could walk in any time.”

The Innovations Centre comprises a Design Facility and Tinkering Laboratory. While the Design Facility is used for brainstorming and meetings, the Tinkering Lab has elaborate conferencing tools, 3D printers, a mechanical workshop with fabrication machinery, electronics workbenches, PCB fabrication set-ups, and prototyping tools for embedded systems, among others.

Arjun Malhotra (right) interacting with students

The idea was to train students in trans-disciplinary areas at early stages of engineering studies and promote the culture of innovation among a wide cross section of students and faculty with support from its alumni and the industry.

Prof. C.S. Kumar of the Department of Mechanical Engineering, who is in charge of the M.N.Faruqui Innovations Centre says, “The objective of this Centre was to provide tinkering facilities to students to motivate them to innovate through experimentation. Till date multiple student groups have sought funding from the Centre to develop innovative products in various domains.”

Some of these domains are Systematic electric power distributor to be used in urban poles, variable range rheostat, micro scale eco pad to facilitate adhesion of objects to various types of surfaces, Energicycle which assists ride with stored potential energy from braking, Suitcase that can be hauled up a staircase, Arsenic filter, clay pot refrigerator etc. With some additional support facilitated by Shri Bijoy Chatterjee, a group is also developing an electric vehicle with its own energy efficient motor control and battery management system.

Prof. Kumar says, “During the past year, one of the projects, namely the Energicycle, has filed a patent. The Centre also supported fabrication of parts for student teams participating in the Smart India Hardware Hackathon in June 2019 for rural technologies using its 3D printers and a PCB router that were made available.”

Anurag Goel, who will graduate from IIT Kharagpur in Instrumentation Engineering in 2019, used the MN Faruqui Innovations Centre, extensively for creating the prototype of the Energicycle. He worked with Hemant Kumar Chaudhury, a fifth year Dual Degree student of Biotechnology, on the project. The idea was proposed at the Open IIT Product Design contest in 2015. The team started work on the project in the 2016 summer. They stayed back during the vacation to work in the M.N. Faruqui Innovations Centre and eventually made the first prototype.

Anurag says, “We were greatly motivated by Prof. Kumar and first made CAD models which were tested. We then made a 3D printed model and next went to cycle shops in Kolkata to experiment the product. We made six different models of the cycle. One has been finalized and gone for patenting.”

The Centre was recently visited by Ravi Kant, IIT KGP alumnus
(BTech/MT/1966/NH) and former vice-chairman Tata Motors, who heard out students and reviewed the works in the facility during his campus visit in August 2018.

In addition, the Centre’s activities were reviewed by Arjun Malhotra during his annual visit at the time of Annual Alumni Meet in January 2019, and by Bijoy Chatterjee during his campus visit in February 2019. Talking about MNFIC, Mr Malhotra said, “Prof. Faruqui has been an inspiring figure. He would always pull me into some kind of a technical discussion to ensure that my ‘fundas’ were clear. For every problem he had a “holistic” approach to ensure that there was a solution that worked in the real world.

“To ensure that students learn, it is necessary to brainstorm together, to give them the support and the space so that they can freely ideate and freely experiment with those ideas.”

A day of action

IIT Kharagpur celebrated the 5^th International Day of Yoga on June 21, 2019 by holding yoga sessions at the Technology Students’ Gymkhana (TSG). Mr Sudhir Kumar, Physical Training Instructor (G-1) and Health Educator from TSG, demonstrated different asanas and pranayama during the event.

There were also other events to mark the day – a quiz competition for Campus school children on June 19, yoga demonstration for Campus kids, senior residents, Faculty, staff and students at the Yoga Room of TSG on June 20.

Mr Kumar said on the occasion, “It is just because of the lack of knowledge and awareness that young people these days indulge in habits which have a very negative effect on their bodies and minds. We can always teach our students to cultivate healthy habits. To maintain a healthy lifestyle, we need to follow a sattwik diet plan – less oil and spices in food. We also suggest ‘alpahara’ – to eat just as much the body needs and to not overfeed. Students these days are health-conscious and they do try to follow this diet plan, but when we teach them through proper formal training, they understand its connection to yoga better.”

Among the asanas demonstrated were Brikshasana – the tree posture that helps in maintaining balance –Trikonasana, Salabhasana, Sarvangasana, Ushtrasana, Patangasana and Pavanmuktasana. Close to two hundred people, including campus residents, students and Faculty, assembled for the yoga session. The session, which started outdoors had to be shifted indoors on account of the rains.

The session at the TSG was attended by the Director, Prof. Partha Pratim Chakrabarti. Prof. Chakrabarti said on the occasion, “This is a wonderful initiative and will go a long way to benefit our students. IIT Kharagpur encourages the practice of yoga throughout the year. Yoga is an indispensable component in the NSO (Health and Fitness) program of IIT Kharagpur which is part of the Institute’s mandatory extra academic activity.”

For professionals who get little time to practice yoga, Mr Kumar said, “I would suggest ‘Surya Namaskar’ for those who are unable to devote much time for yogasanas. Surya Namaskar is a set of 12 postures that lead to a total body workout. So, if 3 to 4 sets of Surya Namaskars can be done on a daily basis, it is more than enough for body fitness. Likewise, if we meditate for half an hour daily, it will help immensely.”

Photo credit: Athletics IIT KGP

Fastest Climb in QS Ranks

IIT Kharagpur has emerged as the fastest rising higher educational institution in the QS World University Rankings 2020. The Institute has climbed 14 places to 281 this year from 295 in 2019, 308 in 2018 and 313 in 2017. This is the highest rate of improvement for top-ranked Indian Institutions.

“The Institute has steadily moved up the QS Rankings year after year, thanks to the wonderful performance of its faculty, students, staff, alumni and tremendous support of government and partners. Grateful to Secretary (HE) MHRD for acknowledging our consistent and speedy improvement,” said Director Prof. P P Chakrabarti.

R. Subrahmanyam, IAS, 1985, Education Secretary, Ministry of Human Resources Development, Govt of India, had earlier tweeted congratulating the Institute for its swift rise in the QS World Ranking 2020 stating it as one of the fastest rising institutions in the world rankings. He also tagged the Prime Minister’s Office and Minister of HRD Dr. Ramesh Pokhriyal Nishank in the tweet.

QS WUR of IIT KGP https://www.topuniversities.com/universities/indian-institute-technology-kharagpur-iit-kgp#wurs

This is the highest ever QS rank achieved by the Institute since it participated the first time in 2012.

“The Institute has maintained a healthy balance between undergraduate and postgraduate students and the ratio of full-time equivalent faculty and students. This was furthered by the remarkable career performance of the recent graduates of the Institute along with the impact of the research projects undertaken by the faculty,” said Prof. M K Tiwari, Dean, Planning & Coordination who heads the initiative of institutional ranking.

The Institute has recently topped in the Times Higher Education Impact Ranking in India.

Undergraduate Research Boost @IITKgp

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IIT Kharagpur is all set to launch the first of its kind Undergraduate Research Program (UGRP) from the upcoming Autumn semester of 2019-20. The initiative is aimed to encourage and nurture the spirit of research and innovation among UG students early on. The UGRP will fund select research ideas proposed by the students on a competitive basis and each successful proposal will be guided by a member of the Institute’s faculty.

The Institute which has been supporting various co-curricular activities of the undergraduate students through travel grants and fellowships to facilitate them participate in competitive projects will now float a competitive grant of ₹ 14 Lakh per year.

“The undergraduate students are extremely talented and motivated. As teachers, we have observed for years that the innovative ideas they come up with can address many real-life challenges. The ability to carry out research is a key capability for all graduates today. Through UGRP we are promoting the idea of research challenge among them which will germinate their potential as innovators and problem-solvers,” said Director Prof. P P Chakrabarti.

20 such proposals will be accepted each year. The projects if successful may also culminate into B.Tech. Thesis Project of the students.

The funding will be generated from alumni donation fund resources. “IIT Kharagpur launched an endowment campaign in 2012 and every year one or two alumni batches have been raising ₹50 Lakh – 1 crore. It has been decided that part of the earnings from this fund will be utilized towards funding the Undergraduate Research Program,” confirmed Dean Alumni Affairs Prof. Subrata Chattopadhyay.

Each selected group will receive support to the extent of ₹ 25000/- for 1 Credit Projects and ₹ 50000/- for the 2 credit projects.

Dean of Undergraduate Studies will coordinate the activity in association with the Technology Transfer Group which is a student-run body. A portal is going to set up for project submission.

“Students who have completed four semesters at IIT Kharagpur can form departmental or interdisciplinary groups and submit project proposals under faculty supervision. The project submission needs to be completed 30 days prior to the beginning of the 5th semester,” said Prof. Sudhir Kumar Barai, Dean, Undergraduate Studies.

For the bright and the brilliant

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The scholarship chooses you, or you choose a scholarship. At IIT Kharagpur, it works both ways!

At IIT Kharagpur, you can self-select yourself to a scholarship. That’s right. For example, if you are a top JEE Advanced scorer, at the end of the 1^st semester, you will be eligible to apply for the ‘Learn-Earn-Return’ scholarship that gives the recipient Rs 10,000 per month for four years, provided, of course, a CGPA of 9 is maintained. In return, the student has to take a pledge to give back to the Institute once they are capable to do so.

IIT Kharagpur, in fact, provides students need-based financial assistance. For all meritorious students whose annual family income is less than Rs 6 lakh, there is tuition waiver or some monthly scholarship, even free mess facility, free hostel and pocket allowance for some of the underprivileged. But financial aid is not denied even to those who come from upper middle class families. The Tower Research Capital India scholarship, for instance, does not take into account the economic criteria at all. Endowment scholarships such as the Ritesh Ranjan Memorial Scholarship, have relaxed the cut-off limit for merit-cum-means scholarships.

Since the Institute believes in the all-round development of students, there are also scholarships – such as the Sushma Mukhija Memorial scholarship or the Vinod Gupta Leadership scholarship –that take into account students’ participation in sports, and extra-curricular activities. Close to 1,000 students at IIT Kharagpur receive financial assistance from various corporations, foundations and external agencies, all of them targeted at rewarding merit. And it does not stop there. The Institute goes one step ahead and offers financial support along with the alumni for participation in international competitions such as Hult Prize, Solvay Business Plan etc. Further, the IIT KGP Foundation USA offers funding for international internships up to an amount of $3000 in order to groom the students for the professional world.

Students can look forward to financial assistance in research even at the UG level as the Institute aims to inculcate the culture of research early on among students. Besides, there are fellowships for research projects and special grants for incubated entrepreneurship projects.

The perks that students can look forward to at IIT Kharagpur are not merely financial. They are mentored by the IIT KGP alumni, groomed professionally by the Institute for placements and receive invaluable professional experience by being part of student societies which participate in various institutional events and projects. Not surprisingly, students come out with flying colours at national and international meets. While students have won international awards like the Honda Young Engineer and Scientist’s (Y-E-S) Award for 2018-19, Best Presentation Award at the Third International Conference on Machine Learning and Soft Computing and others, sixteen young alumni from the Institute have been featured by Forbes magazine for their 30 Under 30 prestigious listing for India and Asia.

Pushkar Singh of LetsTransport, a Bangalore-based intra-city logistics company, who recently made it to the Forbes 30 Under 30 list of 2019, said, “Our achievement in large part is also because of the training we received at IIT Kharagpur, its extra-curricular activities and the network we developed in college”.

In a happy place

The Bio-Electrochemistry laboratory at IIT Kharagpur has helped IIT Kharagpur gain the fourth position among institutions in the world on the basis of its publication record on microbial fuel cell research for real field applications (according to Scopus database). The laboratory is the workplace and practically the home of Prof. Makarand Madhao Ghangrekar of the Department of Civil Engineering, who also heads the newly-established Aditya Choubey Center of Re-Water Research.

In the last two years, Prof. Ghangrekar’s lab has published more than 50 journal papers in high impact factor journals such as Bioresource Technology, Electrochimica Acta, Bioelectrochemistry, International Journal of Hydrogen Energy and so on. The group’s 150 journal publications in reputed peer reviewed journals have received more than 3500 citations and command an h-index of 31 (Google Scholars). Students from universities in India and abroad (UC, Berkley; University of Bremen, Germany; Newcastle University, UK) have been visiting the laboratory to train in bio-electrochemistry research.

The laboratory is mainly focused on various types of Bio-Electrochemical Systems (BESs) such as microbial fuel cell (MFC), microbial carbon capture, microbial electrosynthesis and so on. Prof. Ghangrekar says, “We mainly aim to fabricate low-cost BES and take this technology from lab-scale setup to successful field scale demonstration which should be both economically and environmentally sustainable.”

BES is multidisciplinary approach for wastewater treatment and CO₂ sequestration. These systems use microbes as biocatalyst for the production of value-added products like bioelectricity and organic chemicals during the treatment of waste water, thus eliminating the use of expensive metal based catalysts for these processes.

The Bio-Electrochemistry lab at IIT Kharagpur has been focussing on various aspects of MFC (microbial fuel cell) to improve its performance both in term of power production and wastewater treatability. Various novel and low-cost electrocatalysts like CoZnFe, CuSn, Geothite, V₂O₅/Graphene oxide, Bi doped TiO₂, WO₃ etc. have been developed keeping in mind the field scale application of MFC.

A breakthrough has been the innovation of the proton exchange membrane (PEM) that separates the anodic and cathodic chamber in an MFC. Usually, the membrane is made of Nafion, which is extremely expensive, thereby raising the price of the MFC. But the Polyvinyl alcohol-Nafion-Borosilicate membrane invented by the research group is not only 11-fold cheaper but also more efficient in the treatment of distillery waste water. Extensive research has been undertaken to improve the electricity production of MFCs.

Microbial carbon capture (MCC) is another application of BES where microalgae are used in the cathodic chamber for the sequestration of CO₂ and production of organic chemicals. The microalgae can also be an excellent feedstock for biodiesel production on harvesting. Prof. Ghangrekar says, “We have tried to enhance and optimize the efficiency and cost associated with MCC.. Further, application of MCC in sediment remediation, desalination, urine treatment and acid alkali recovery was also examined.”

Microbial electrosynthesis (MES) is a novel application of BESs that produces organic compounds by electrosynthesis through external application of electricity and the use of microorganisms as biocatalysts. Many organic compounds like acetate, butyrate, propionate, piperidinone etc. have been successfully synthesized in the lab through MES. “We are also exploring the possibility of synthesizing higher chain organic compounds using MES, which would increase the revenue generation from the process,” says Prof. Ghangrekar.

Many of the technologies, such as the new PEM, are already in use in the 1500 litre MFC-based demonstration plant installed at IIT Kharagpur. This bio-toilet is the largest plant in the world for onsite treatment of sewage, electricity generation for illuminating toilets at night and producing recyclable quality treated water. A 750 litre MFC based demonstration plant has been installed by the team at NTPC, Noida. They are also working on multiple projects and collaborating with various international partners from Germany, Estonia, Belgium, and UK etc.

I meet an upbeat team on my visit to the laboratory in the Civil Engineering Department. Neetu B., a senior member of the research team talks of Prof. Ghangrekar’s contribution to the success story. “Sir is motivating and at the same time very strict about the timely submission of papers.” Gourav Dhar Bhowmick chips in, “But he always encourages his team to get exposure to the renowned scientific community and gain the necessary confidence for innovative work.” A junior member of the team, Chabungbam Niranjit Khuman, talks about the ‘Chai-parties’ to celebrate the publication of each research article.

Not surprisingly, Prof. Ghangrekar thanks his team in his Facebook post celebrating the lab’s success. “Credit goes to all the Research scholars working with me for their sincere effort and hard work. I know it is all the more challenging for them to manoeuvre this academic ladder with me maintaining the energy, pace, tenacity, at times patience, sustaining my anger, receiving no appreciation even for late night work and that too for 24X7 all the calendar days,” reads the post.

Risk Perceptions Challenging Green Lighting

India Today

Are perceived risks making Indians shy away from eco-friendly LED lighting? – Researchers at IIT Kharagpur’s Vinod Gupta School of Management find concurrence in a study pointing out at consumer psychology and perceived high-cost factor which might be slowing down the growth of the Indian LED lighting market.

The UJALA scheme by Govt. of India had been aiming to make a transition to LED for all lighting needs by 2019. This could have helped the nation save over ₹ 40,000 crore a year. But looking at the sales figures in 2018, the market share of incandescent bulbs, CFLs, and traditional tube lights still exceeded LED lamps and TLEDs by 116 million pieces. Domestic consumers, who account for about 24% of the total electricity demand in the country, are skeptical and perceive a high level of risk when it comes to purchasing and usage of green products.

What is holding them back? Prof. Sangeeta Sahney and research scholar Sujit Kumar Ray from Vinod Gupta School of Management conducted a PAN India study which suggests financial, psychological, physical, and performance risks perceived by consumers as among the potential reasons behind such conservative buying behaviour, the financial and psychological risks being the key among them. (Access Full Paper)

An LED bulb costs almost 4 times of traditional tube light and close to 15 times of incandescent bulbs. Does the extra cost incurred in purchasing an LED light bulb match the benefits of energy efficiency as claimed? This is a question which a consumer often ponders on while making the buying decision at a retail shop and finally settles with traditional lighting systems, opines Prof. Sahney, based on the study. But LED bulbs are proven power savers with energy efficiency as 9 watts for light output requiring 15 watts and 28 watts in case of CFL and traditional tube lights. This leads to a reduction in electricity usage for an estimated period of 6 hours per day for 5 years to ₹ 493/- for LED bulbs as against the cost of ₹821/- and ₹1533/- for CFL and traditional lighting (assuming average unit cost ₹ 5) thus reducing total cost by 52% and the energy cost by 68%.

Another critical factor observed in the study was the Indian consumers’ psychological barrier in this transition to energy efficient lighting system. Since the technology is still new in the minds of the Indian consumers, they may not be fully aware of the effectiveness of the products available in the market.

“Consumers’ faith on green products get compromised when it comes to their purchase behavior due to their perception that green products have lower value, may not deliver performance as per expectation, and in no case are consumers likely to compromise on value, performance, and price,” says researcher Sujit Kumar Ray in his paper “Indian consumers’ risk perception in buying green products: the case of LED light bulbs” published in the Asia Pacific Journal of Marketing and Logistics recently.

Sujit and Prof. Sahney recommend nationwide campaign to increase consumer awareness regarding benefits of LED bulbs such as warranty available for LED bulbs or if rebates on electricity bills and promotional discounts can be offered to first time users.

Author of the paper may be contacted at sujitkumar@iitkgp.ac.in