Opened by VNITAA as a noble gesture towards its friend, VLSC Club to shape personality of students 

 

During academic education students get engrossed into academics and they hardly get engaged into extracurricular activities. Since they don’t do any other activities, their personality is not groomed the way it should be. Considering this aspect, Visvesvaraya National Institute of Technology Alumni Association (VNITAA) has come up with a unique activity to shape the personality of their students. The alumni of 1983 batch doing this as a tribute to its colleague P S Visveswara, whom they used to call ‘Viswa’. VNITAA has formed a Viswa Life Skill Club (VLSC) that would help students in grooming their personality.

 

Dr Pramod Padole, Director of VNIT, has appreciated the emotional gesture of the batch of 1983 leading to this project for overall development of the students. VNITAA has formed the club on the birthday of Viswa, who lived his life to the fullest. Recently, in an unfortunate incident, while saving the life of his friend on a trek, Visveswara laid down his life. Sivashankar, father of Viswa, controlling his emotions, in a very balanced way elaborated how Viswa grew up to become a person spreading happiness amongst all. He expressed that definitely the initiative by VRCE 83 will spread the fragrance of love and empathy amongst all and promote living of selfless life amongst all by participation of VNIT students. He appreciated the initiative to the positive passionate living philosophy of his late son Viswa. “Viswa Life Skill Club (VLSC) will provide an excellent opportunity to the students of VNIT to develop their personality through participation in outdoor activities and adventure sports viz. trekking, nature expeditions, mountaineering, cycling, marathon running, etc and help them in harmonious work-life balance," said Dr Pramod Padole, while talking to ‘The Hitavada’.

 

The club, an unique initiative of VNIT Nagpur Alumni Association (VNITAA), was inaugurated recently. VNITAA, a not-for-profit company formed in 2012, has been engaged in alumni activities aimed at benefiting all the stakeholders of the VNIT family i.e. alumni, students, faculty members etc. It has mobilised the alumni across batches and geographies, for “giving back” to their “Alma mater” at the auspicious occasion of Diamond Jubilee. They have undertaken many projects enhancing campus infrastructure and student amenities of which Phase 1 projects were inaugurated in January 2020. Dr Padole lauded the Team Spirit and commitment of VRCE 83 batch that transformed concept/idea to feasible project in less than 2 weeks. He assured VNITAA to provide support in developing the infrastructure for this on the campus and also to promote it amongst the students and faculty. Dr Dilip Peshwe Dean, VNIT appealed VNITAA to get affiliated/ associated with the Gymkhana of VNIT and other national/international entities engaged in similar activities (Outward Bound Bharat, YHAI, Prahaar etc.) and to arrange events, annual Viswa Memorial Oration, to VNIT students etc. Uday Kamat, Chairman, VNITAA outlined the scope and objectives of the VLSC. Some of the key objectives of the VLSC, Kamat elaborated are to make the students inculcate the culture of leading a healthy, happy, fit and enjoyable lifestyle. It would also promote outdoor activities (trekking, nature/jungle expeditions, mountaineering, cycling, marathon running) and ‘Adventure Sports’ (scuba diving, skydiving etc), creating proper infrastructure in the campus for adventure sports training with the help of VNIT management, to facilitate training and organising the treks, expeditions, marathons, cycling events etc to promote the life skills of compassion, empathy, team building, networking etc.

 

Kamat was all praise for Rakesh Shrivastava, Hemant Thakare, Ramesh Lakhe and Angad Kale (Core Team 1983) and Dr Dilip Peshwe, Joginder Singh and Kamlesh Laddhad (VNITAA team) for helping convert an idea into a feasible project in a short span of 10 days. Ashish Deshpande and members of his company RCC Ltd proposed the support in organising lectures and sessions on railway engineering at Civil Rngineering Department of VNIT. Dr Yashwant Katpatal, HoD, Civil, VNIT accepted the proposal of RCC Ltd, the Consultancy firm of Viswa to start electives on railway engineering. He assured the on-line gathering of more than 100 alumni to develop the lab or similar infrastructure in association with RCC Ltd. Rakesh Shrivastava, conducted the proceedings. Prashant Marathe and Milind Patil presented a nice memoir of Viswa.

 

Hemant Thakre proposed a vote of thanks. Ramesh Lakhe organised the on-line meeting and coordinated the presentations. The inaugural function was held on-line due to pandemic and was attended by over 90 persons including the Directors of VNITAA- Joginder Singh Sond, Vinaya Nandekar, Ashok Agarwala, Kamlesh Laddhad, VNIT Faculty members, Alumni from 1983 batch, friends and family members of late P S Visweswara.