Stamped Impressions
Coupled with aesthetics and excellence
Reeta Sharma

Reeta Sharma meets the Singlas who have set up a high-tech college near Chandigarh

WHEN you enter Neelam and Sukhdev Singla’s home in Chandigarh, you cannot miss the stamp of aesthetics and creativity on their house. A chat with the couple reveals their personalities, and their shared aims.

Neelam, who secured a Master’s in English from Lady Sri Ram College, Delhi, is an unassuming and a low-profile woman. Her husband, too, is a man of few words. But when you begin talking to them about the realisation of their aspiration to set up a state-of-the art college, they are not at a loss of words.

It all started, say the couple, when their daughter went to a college of architecture in Punjab and faced a number of hardships. This made the couple sit up and they asked themselves why couldn’t they open a college of architecture which would provide quality education. While Neelam had been voluntarily teaching English to children in the Department of Advanced Paediatrics, PGI, Sukhdev had a roaring brick-kiln business.

"Initially, the idea was only to set up a college of architecture but soon we drew elaborate plans for having colleges for engineering, management and education. In 2002, we bought 70 acres in Abhipur, 18 km from PGI in Ropar district, for the purpose," discloses this couple.

Driven by their zeal to excel, this couple built the huge campus within nine months and by July, 2003, the first batch was admitted to Indo Global College of Engineering, Architecture, Management and Education. Accredited with ISO-9001: 2000 certification, this self-financed institute, whose objective is to produce world-class technocrats, is setting new benchmarks in quality adherence. It has been approved by the AICTE, New Delhi, and the Government of Punjab and now the college is affiliated to the Punjab Technical University.

The lush green campus in Abhipur is the first thing that strikes you as you enter the institution. A round of the campus leaves you mesmerised. The discipline of civil engineering, mechanical engineering, computer science, electronics and communications engineering have appropriate workshops with expensive material like wood, mercury, iron, etc, being liberally provided to the students to experiment with. The college is equipped with state-of-the-art laboratories and licensed software for students’ use. There are interactive classrooms with fully air-conditioned seminar rooms. The college has well laid out grounds for sport activities.

Sukhdev aims to have a well-stocked library. "At present our air-conditioned library has 11,000 books on different subjects, beside a number of Indian and foreign journals. It also has an impressive collection of audio-visual material. I am allocating a budget of Rs 1 crore to make it a dream library."

Neelam’s feminine touch is writ large on the entire campus: a kitchen that makes excellent nutritious food, dustfree classrooms and laboratories, spick and span corridors and sparkling toilets. She personally gets all the water tanks cleaned every Saturday. Besides looking into the welfare of the students and employees, Neelam takes the responsibility of purchasing furniture and library books.

"I make it a point to supervise the cleanliness and maintenance of the entire campus. Toilets, kitchen and the food are my priority. I wonder why most Indian institutions pay the least attention to these three areas."

Sukhdev, as the Chairman of the institute, is obsessed with providing world-class facilities to the students.

"Just good infrastructure is not enough, hence, my stress is on providing the best faculty as well. Besides youngsters with experience, those who have retired from the best of the institutions of the country are part of our faculty. We want to provide practical training to the students in every field. Keeping their comfort levels in mind, we organise a 21-day survey camp for civil engineering students in Dalhousie. I have provided as many as 23 laboratories and eight workshops, separate hostel facility for boys and girls at Chandigarh and nine buses to transport them to the institution every day."