General
Secretary
candidate,
Ashutosh
Mundhada,
took
some
time out of
his
busy
schedule to
give an interview to the Press Club which lasted
for a good 45 minutes. In the conversation that
ensued, he emphasized that all of his manifesto
points are aimed at bringing small, yet very helpful
changes in the lives of BITSians. To counter the
common belief that he came up with the thought
of contesting and formulating the manifesto after
coming back on campus, he reassured us that the
planning had been taking place for quite some
time.
Starting off with his manifesto, the first issue that
we touched upon was video-based counselling. To
the reader who has not attended a campaigning
session yet, this provides a direct link to a
counsellor on a requirement basis via videocounselling. Currently, counsellors visit Pilani only
once in a month for four days, resu lting in delays
for those who require immediate help. With the
video-counselling system in place, an appointment
would be all you need. One of the concerns
regarding this is the bandwidth, which we, the
residents of Pilani have to conserve judiciously
and meticulously. Irrespective of the platform
used, the bandwidth demand will be high.
Moving on, Mundhada wishes to support
APOGEE projects and feels that involving the
National Entrepreneurship Network (NEN) can
give these a much needed push. The Center for
Entrepreneurial Leadership (CEL) shall shortlist
the projects based on attributes like feasibility,
innovation and quality of research. The final
decision to deem projects worthy of support will
rest with the NEN. Not many first year students
on campus are aware about the detailed
functioning of clubs and departments. To solve
this, Ashutosh has plans to build a website by the
name BITS Wiki. For those who are unaware, the
previous Students’ Union website already had
content similar to the wiki page proposed by him.
To this claim, he answered that his webpage will
have additional and exhaustive content, including
academic opportunities apart from clubs and
departments, which can be conveniently added
and edited by BITSians.
Moving on to the most talked about point in his
manifesto, the tele-medical service. A paramedic
trained by Apollo Hospital will implement the
instructions given by a doctor on the other side of
the video-link. The setup cost is high, but will be
divided equally among those availing the service,
reducing the cost that they have to incur. He
highlights that this service will not only be limited
to students but faculty members and support staff
as well. When asked about the sustainability of this
scheme, he says that they will try their best to cater
to the people's needs and its future shall depend
on the extent to which this service is utilized. The
internship cell, the setting up of which is one of
the points his manifesto hinges on, raises a lot of
questions in terms of feasibility. He feels that the
internship programs run by NSS, Nirmaan and
CEL (Summer in a Start-up) are treated as
secondary tasks by these organisations. To
improve upon this, he hopes to build an
independent body, whose sole purpose will be to
provide internships for the people on campus.
Since he realizes that there should be only one
point of contact for a particular company from
BITS, he intends to involve people from PU,
CEL, NSS, and Nirmaan in the internship cell to
ensure that various kinds of internships are
provided and only one point of contact remains.
Points like this and the tele-medical services are
very ambitious in nature. However, he seems to
have a well-structured plan for his tenure and
claims to have fared well in the Audi Debate. One
hopes that if elected he follows up with action.
Here's wishing him the best of luck.