CHENNAI: MK Surappa, who will serve as Vice-Chancellor of Anna University will administer more than 240 colleges affiliated to it. He had served as the Director of IIT-Ropar for six years from 2009 to 2015. Holding a doctorate in metallurgical engineering, Surappa has teaching experience of more than 30 years. Of these, he had spent 24 years at Indian Institute of Science. A fellow of the Indian National Science Academy and a fellow of the Indian National Academy of Engineering, he has around 150 research publications to his name.
ou have been shortlisted and selected as V-C of Anna University out of 170 candidates. Were you always interested in the university’s work?
Anna University is an institution with great legacy and I’m taking it up as a challenge to improve it. I was the secretary for Karnataka State Council for Science and Technology (2004 to 2009) and introduced several novel society-centric scientific projects. I have also helped the Tamil Nadu Planning Commission on some projects. I later went on to become the founding Director of IIT-Ropar and the institute became No 1 among new IITs in terms of research impact. I want to use the insight and experience I have earned in a place like Anna University which is doing so well. I want to make Anna University much better than IITs and bring up its ranking and make it more impactful to nation.
Is there any particular area that you’d like to develop in the university?
I don’t want to focus on any area particularly. Every University should contribute to various fields and the university should contribute to knowledge on different topics and disciplines. We should think about futuristic technologies, for which we need to change some subjects, content, programmes and build new labs. I wanted to be very neutral at IIT Ropar. Which is why I didn’t start my own department there or write any paper with faculty during my tenure there.
Political parties have raised criticism about your tenure at IIT Ropar. One criticism is to do with non-utilisation of funds dedicated for infrastructure and another allegation that you plagiarised someone else’s work
There is no criticism from political parties against me. I wasn’t aware about this. However, the allegation on the building is baseless. The architect we had chosen for the labs had cheated us on the tender and the construction got delayed. I didn’t want to go ahead with the same architect. So, we released a new tender and I didn’t want to use the funds for anything else. I’m shocked to hear about allegations of plagiarism. I believe in high levels of integrity. There is no proof for such a thing.
Coming to the elephant in the room, you must have heard about the linguistic controversy
I don’t understand this. In the early 60s and 70s, eminent scholars used to go to other universities across State. Sarvepalli Radhakrishnan has come to Mysore from Tamil Nadu. I don’t think language is a barrier to building an institution to bring excellence. The leader should be par excellent. The leader should have integrity, passion and commitment to institution and people of the nation State where he is living.