The Convocation Ceremony of the First Batch of the B.S.(Manufacturing Engineering) Programme conducted by Bharat Forge Limited in collaboration with Birla Institute of Technology and Science (BITS), Pilani was held at Hotel Le Meridien, on Saturday, 18th August 2007.
The degree was awarded to 35 students for the first batch of B.S. (Manufacturing Engineering) for the year 2007 by Dr L K Maheshwari, Vice Chancellor, BITS, Pilani . The ceremony began by awarding the best students of the year Mr Santoshsingh Thakur, Mr Vishal Pha ltankar and Mr Sunil Pawar who had not only consistently excelled in their theoretical studies but also obtained the overall 1st , 2nd and 3rd positions respectively. The winners were then presented with the Gold, Silver and Bronze Medals and a gift cheque by the Chief Guest Dr L K Maheshwari.
Speaking at the occasion, Dr L K Maheshwari, Vice - Chancellor, BITS PIlani in his Keynote Address said that “Organisations of today cannot be organizations of the 19th century. They have to be organizations of the 21st century, which means that they have to be Learning Organizations”. Talking about the rapid advances that are being made in technology, he said that it is a prediction that technology is going to develop every 11 hours, which means that each one of us h as to be a student throughout our life.
Stressing on education he said that it is education and education alone which can make a company proud and take it forward. It is education which has always succeeded in the world and in days to come it will be education & research that will ultimately lead technology, he added.
On March 30, 2004, Bharat Forge Ltd signed a MoU with BITS, Pilani for a synergistic relationship in Human Resource Development. As a part of the MoU, BITS was to conduct a program at BFL which would primarily, enable BITS to offer a degree course equivalent to BE to the Kalyani Group employees.
Earlier in his Opening Remarks, Mr B N Kalyani , Chairman & Managing Director, Bharat Forge Ltd., said that “ I am extremely pleased and happy to see that this day has arrived. It has been my dream to bring education into our company , into our system and to provide opportunities to our colleagues for higher learning”. Congratulating all the 35 graduates, he said that they have very wonderfully balanced their work, their family and their studies and that’s not an easy job.
Going ahead he explained the rationale behind this whole programme , where he said that it was his endeavour to see as to how we could create more brain power in our company by providing higher education opportunities to people within the company . He was very convinced of the fact that there is no substitute for good education and therefore started thinking on how to create this infrastructure for learning & set up an educational process within the company to create that enrichment that is required to produce talent in a group of people who will lead Bharat Forge in the years to come. And that’s where we started our Bachelors Program in Manufacturing Engineering.
My own vision and for ecast , he said, was that 10 years from now India with its talented human capital which is the younger population should firmly be on the manufacturing map of the world. What we have started in our company is only a beginning. The future lies in the ability to globalize yourself, the ability to compete and the ability to capture the global market.
Bharat Forge today spends a huge amount of money and resources on training. The company started its 1st Batch of B.S. (manufacturing Engineering) in July 2004. Currently the company is running three batches simultaneously. A total of 169 employees have been covered under this programme. The company has also collaborated with Warwick University for Post Graduation in Manufacturing Management and over 76 high potenti al employees are currently undergoing this programme.
Dr B R Natarajan, Dean, Distance Learning Programme Division, BITS Pilani, in his concluding remarks thanked BFL for giving them this opportunity and said that here is a collaboration of perfect unders tanding. Both organizations are driven by the passion to achieve excellence. Both organizations are leaders in their own way. They know the way, go the way and show the way to achieve excellence.
The Convocation Ceremony was attended by Dr L K Maheshwari, Vice-Chancellor, BITS Pilani, Dr B R Natarajan, Dean, Distance Learning Programme Division, BITS Pilani, Mr B N Kalyani, Chairman & Managing Director, Bharat Forge Ltd., Senior Exceutives of the Kalyani Group, Faculty Members of BITS Pilani, family membe rs of the passing out Grdauates & the 2nd batch of B.S. (Manufacturing Engineering) Students.
Dr S V Bhave was the Master of Ceremony while Mr Milind Jadhav proposed the vote of thanks.
