Welcome to the ITBHU Chronicle, June 2010 Edition News Section.
BHU News
BHU V-C lays foundation of 15 buildings
@ Jun 16, 2010
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http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/city/varanasi/BHU-V-C-lays-foundation-of-15-buildings/articleshow/5969905.cms

TNN, May 24, 2010, 10.26pm IST

VARANASI: Vice-chancellor of Banaras Hindu University Prof DP Singh performed bhoomi pujan and laid the foundation stones of 15 buildings on the campus on Monday. These buildings will be constructed under the OBC reservation.

According to university spokespersons, the estimated cost of the buildings is over Rs 8,000 lakh. The amount will be spent on the construction of lecture theatres, transit married student hostel, laboratories of pharmacy, biochemical, biomedical, computer engineering, mechanical engineering and classrooms.

The BHU, under the provisions of the Central Educational Institutions (Reservation in Admission) Act 2006, had started a phase-wise programme for the implementation of OBC reservation in admission in 2008. The University Grant Commission (UGC) had allocated funds for the creation of required infrastructure, recruitment of teachers and other expenses.

The V-C along with other members of BHU family performed puja at Vishwanath Temple on the campus for getting top rank in the list of Indian universities. It may be mentioned here that BHU topped in a survey of universities.

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BHU open to bonds fund
@ Jun 16, 2010
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http://www.telegraphindia.com/1100528/jsp/nation/story_12496073.jsp

CHARU SUDAN KASTURI

New Delhi, May 27: One of the country’s oldest varsities may become the country’s first to embrace financial markets as a source of funds to overcome budget shortage under a radical but potentially controversial plan.

Banaras Hindu University has drafted a plan to issue bonds in a move that could represent a tectonic shift in the way public universities are funded in India, top government and BHU officials said.

Senior university officials are expected to meet tomorrow to draw up a roadmap for implementing the plan.

Under the plan, the 94-year old BHU will issue callable and cumulative bonds and use the funds to build infrastructure for which it lacks finances under its formal budgetary allocations.

Callable bonds can be redeemed by the issuer before the time of maturity. The missed dividend payments are added to the next dividend payment in case of cumulative bonds.

The central university is banking on tapping into the sentiments of the university’s massive, widespread and influential alumni network in the country and abroad.

Many engineers who graduated from the Institute of Technology, BHU, have subsequently started their own companies and several among them have expressed interest in assisting their alma mater, sources said.

“The plan is to call upon our alumni to invest in these bonds and in the process help their alma mater,” a university source said.

BHU officials have already discussed the plan with the human resource development ministry and are unlikely to face opposition from HRD minister Kapil Sibal, sources said.

But top varsity officials are treading cautiously, aware of possible sensitivities associated with a public university approaching the financial markets for funds.

“This is a plan that is being considered. But no final decision has been taken yet,” BHU vice-chancellor D.P. Singh said.Even a plan for a central university to issue bonds and try and tap funds from the financial market would have been unacceptable to the HRD ministry and the University Grants Commission till a year back.

Under Sibal’s predecessor Arjun Singh, the ministry and the UGC steadfastly opposed most moves aimed at financing higher educational institutions which involved either the markets or private partners.

In 2007, the University of Mumbai hired Deutshe Bank to draft a proposal under which the varsity would be listed at the Bombay Stock Exchange. But the UGC opposed the move, which later was stalled.

Under Sibal however, the ministry has shown significantly greater encouragement for alternative funding sources — central educational institutions are at present completely funded by the Centre.

The ministry is evolving public-private partnership (PPP) models for investment in both school and higher education.

The ministry has also proposed a National Education Finance Corporation which will offer loans to fledgling higher educational institutions — public and private — to help in the creation of new institutions. India faces a severe demand-supply gap in higher educational opportunities.

One of the proposed modes for financing the corporation is to issue bonds gift-wrapped with tax benefits.

“As long as the BHU plan is workable, we are unlikely to have many problems,” a government source said.

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IIT News Update
JEE results out; IIT Bombay zone leads
@ Jun 16, 2010
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http://www.dnaindia.com/academy/report_jee-results-out-iit-bombay-zone-leads_1388309

Mihika Basu / DNA

Thursday, May 27, 2010 1:41 IST

Mumbai: The IIT-Bombay zone once again boasts of the maximum number of candidates, 3,145, who have cracked the Joint Entrance Examination (JEE) of the IITs, the results of which were declared on Wednesday. It is followed by the IIT-Madras (2,619) and IIT-Delhi (2,264) zones.

Of 455,571 candidates who took the JEE this year, 12,676 cleared it. For the preparatory course, 262 scheduled tribe (ST) candidates and 166 physical disability (PD) candidates have qualified. The number of candidates who appeared in the JEE in 2010 is over 18% more than 2009.

The all-India success rate has increased marginally from 2.6% in 2009 to 2.78%. Roughly 9,500 seats are available across all the IITs, IT-BHU (Varanasi) and ISMU-Dhanbad. Of these, 2,567 seats are reserved for other backward classes (OBCs), 1,426 for the scheduled castes (SC) and 713 for the STs.

Approximately 4,800 seats are available for the general category. Three per cent seats in each category are reserved for PD candidates.

Compared to 2009, the number of candidates qualifying from the Bombay zone has dipped, but has increased for the other zones (Delhi, Guwahati, Kanpur, Kharagpur, Madras and Roorkee).

However, the maximum number of candidates who appeared for JEE 2010 was from the Bombay zone: 76,771. The success rate for the Bombay zone in 2010 is 4.09%, down from 4.2% in 2009. Last year, 3,379 candidates qualified from the Bombay zone.

Again, while 46 candidates from the Bombay zone figured in the top 100 on the merit list last year, this year the number has come down to 22. The Madras zone has the maximum - 32 — in the top 100, while Guwahati has none.

In the top 500, 138 are from the Bombay zone and 140 from the Madras zone.

“Such numbers fluctuate. It depends on how serious the students are from a particular zone. Another reason could be that Hyderabad (part of the madras zone) is now slowly becoming a good coaching hub,” said a former JEE chairman.

“However, the Bombay zone takes over when you look at the top 1,000, in which 278 are from this zone, while 252 are from the Madras zone,” said IIT-Bombay JEE chairman Anil Kumar.

The number of students qualifying from the Bombay zone without any relaxation is 2,331, with 490 qualifying from Mumbai alone.

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More girls get into IIT-JEE this year
@ Jun 16, 2010
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http://www.deccanchronicle.com/hyderabad/more-girls-get-iit-jee-year-260

May 27th, 2010

DC Correspondent

Hyderabad, May 26: More girls qualified than boys in the IIT- JEE results which were announced on Wednesday. From last year’s 1,048, the number of girls qualifying rose to 1,476 this year. Ms Meghana Katta of Hyderabad secured fifth rank in the reserved quota.

The slashing of application fee by half for girls has shown a positive impact for girls since 2006. This year, for the first time in the history of IIT-JEE, the number of girls appearing for the exam crossed the 1-lakh mark.

Of the 1,13,127 girls who took the exam, 1,476 qualified. Ms Aakanksha Tushar Sarda topped among girls with an all-India rank of 18 in the open category. In 2008, only 840 girls had cleared the test.

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Scheduled Caste candidates reserve date in IIT history
@ Jun 16, 2010
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http://www.dnaindia.com/mumbai/report_scheduled-caste-candidates-reserve-date-in-iit-history_1388294

Mihika Basu / DNA

Thursday, May 27, 2010 1:17 IST

Mumbai: Probably for the first time ever, seats reserved for Scheduled Castes (SCs) in various centres of Indian Institute of Technology (IIT) will be filled up from the word go.

This became evident after the joint entrance examination (JEE) results were declared on Wednesday.

The IITs, this year, will not have to prepare a separate preparatory list for SC candidates as the number of successful candidates is more than the available seats reserved for the SCs.

Preparatory list includes those candidates who did not score enough in the JEE to make it to the reserved seats and are given further relaxation on the grades so that they could be put through training and admitted to the IITs to fill the quota.

“To my knowledge, this is probably the first time that we have not had to prepare a preparatory course list for SC candidates,” said IIT Bombay director Devang Khakhar.“This year, we have more SC candidates qualifying than the number of seats available.” IIT Madras director, MS Ananth, concurred with him that this could be a first.

SC/ST candidates along with students with physical disabilities (PD) get 50% relaxation from the general category candidates.

A further 50% relaxation is given to those who do not qualify so that they can be sent for the preparatory course. In 2009, a little over 1,000 SC and ST seats had to be converted to the preparatory course as not many could qualify.

All the IITs, IT-BHU and ISMU-Dhanbad conduct a one-year preparatory course for SC/ST/ and students with physical disabilities who do not make it to the common or the reserved category merit lists.

This year, of the 42,800 SC candidates who appeared, 1,773 have qualified to seek admission to 1,426 seats, ie 15% of the total number of reserved seats — 9,509.

Of the 1,773 SCs, around 120 made it to the common merit list. The remaining 1,653 qualified for the reserved seats after the prescribed relaxation of 50%.

Kanishak Kataria, with an all-India rank of 44 topped the SC category. (From IIT Bombay zone alone, 404 SCs qualified, of which 22 got into the general category and 382 made it to the reserved seats.) In 2009, only 967 SCs had qualified all over India. Another 473 SCs qualified for the preparatory course.

As far as ST candidates are concerned, of the 15,975 candidates who took JEE, only 517 qualified to seek admission to 713 seats. Of these, scores of 498 had to be relaxed by 50%. Another 262 have qualified for the preparatory course.

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This year, more SC students qualify than available quota
@ Jun 16, 2010
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http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/india/This-year-more-SC-students-qualify-than-available-quota/articleshow/5978953.cms

Hemali Chhapia, TNN, May 27, 2010, 03.22am IST

MUMBAI: In 1993-94, the IITs wrote to the government for permission to run a year-long preparatory course, a feeder class to train quota students for a year to equip them to clear the JEE. That was when quota seats went abegging. Now, things have come full circle and probably for the first time this year, the tech schools have declared there would be no preparatory course for Scheduled Caste candidates, as more students have qualified than seats available.

Popularly termed "prepies" on campus, the students did not make the mark forcing the IITs to generously reduce cut-offs and put them through special coaching. "But over the years, enough SC students have done well and qualified for the IITs. It is probably the first time that we don't need to conduct a preparatory course for them," said IIT-Madras director M S Ananth.

According to information provided by IIT-Madras, which organised the JEE-2010, 1,773 SC candidates qualified across the country, against the 1,426 seats reserved for them across the 15 IITs. In 2009, merely 967 SC students qualified, compelling the IITs to put 473 candidates through the preparatory programme to fill the remaining seats (see box). "All those who qualify from the 2009 batch will also be admitted. The class size in most IITs may go up, but that is the way the preparatory system scheme works," explained T S Natarajan, JEE 2010 chairman. Stating that parents were getting more conscious of "social factors like education", Natarajan observed that the number of quota students requiring a relaxation in scores too was falling. This year, of the SC students who qualified, 120 did not even require a handicap.
This is how the IITs select a quota student: Let's assume the last general category student is admitted with an overall score of 100 (out of 480), and the aggregate cut-off for an SC/ST student would be 50 (after a 50% relaxation). To select students for the preparatory course, the IITs will further lower the qualifying score by another 50% (25 marks).

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120 from Gujarat make it to the IITs
@ Jun 16, 2010
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http://www.dnaindia.com/academy/report_120-from-gujarat-make-it-to-the-iits_1388391

DNA Correspondent / DNA

Thursday, May 27, 2010 15:08 IST

Ahmedabad: Around 120 students from the state are estimated to have made it to the IITs as per the results of the IIT-JEE examination which was declared on Wednesday. As many students have been travelling and coaching classes could not confirm the number of students who have made it to the IITs, an exact figure could not be derived on the day of the result.

At the national level a total of 13,104 candidates today cleared the prestigious entrance to the IITs this year. Anumula Jithendar Reddy from Madras zone has topped the test at the national level.

These students will be eligible for admission to the 15 IITs, ISM Dhanbad and IT-BHU. There are 9,509 seats in these institutions. Over 4.5 lakh candidates had appeared in JEE-2010 which was conducted by seven of the IITs on April 11.

This year the number of candidates who had taken the examination was up by 18.3 per cent as compared to last year. While the test was conducted in seven zones, IIT Bombay zone produced the maximum number of successful candidates with 3,145 of them figuring in the merit list followed by IIT Madras (2619), IIT Delhi (2264), IIT Kharagpur (1481), IIT Kanpur (1341), IIT Roorkee (1305) and IIT Guwahati (521).

While 1.13 lakh girls appeared in the test, 1476 managed to qualify. Aakanksha Tushar Sarda emerged as the topper among girls with an all India rank of 18. About 554 candidates in Hindi medium have qualified for the entrance test which is a three fold rise from last year.

This year there will be no Scheduled Caste preparatory list as the number of successful SC candidates is more than the available seats for them. This year, 2357 OBC candidates cleared the test, while 1773 SCs, 517 STs and 174 physically challenged got through the same.

This time the IITs are conducting counselling online. The counselling website will be open from Thursday till June 12.

Candidates are expected to fill their choice of courses in all the participating institutes online from May 30. While the candidates belonging to the General category do not need to report in person to any of the institutes for counselling, other candidates belonging to OBC, SC, ST and Physically Disabled categories will have to report in person.

The web-release of the first seat allotment will be made on June 28 while the second one will be released on July 14.

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He topped the list
@ Jun 16, 2010
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http://www.hindu.com/yw/2010/06/01/stories/2010060150570300.htm

Tuesday, Jun 01, 2010

COMPILED BY NIMI KURIAN


266-IIT toppers.png


A. Jithender Reddy : With second ranker Uday K Shah in Hyderabad. Photo: PTI

Every year the number of students who appear for the IIT- Joint Entrance increases. This year saw a total of 4.5 lakh candidates.And of the lot, Anumula Jithendar Reddy from Madras zone topped this year's All India list of successful candidates, the IITs said in a release. The second ranker was Uday K. Shah. While 1.13 lakh girls appeared in the test, 1476 qualified. Aakanksha Tushar Sarda emerged the topper among girls with an All India Rank of 18.

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IIT-JEE merit lists show a rise in cut-off marks
@ Jun 16, 2010
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http://www.dnaindia.com/mumbai/report_iit-jee-merit-lists-show-a-rise-in-cut-off-marks_1393283

Mihika Basu / DNA

Tuesday, June 8, 2010 0:58 IST

267-IIT JEE.png

Mumbai: First, the joint entrance examination (JEE) results showed a slight increase in success rate across India. Now, the merit lists recently released by the Indian Institutes of Technology (IITs) have revealed that the entry bar across categories (both open and reserved), too, has gone up marginally.

The qualifying score in the open category has climbed from 178 in 2009 to 190 this year. It implies that the last candidate on the open merit list has scored 190 out of a total of 480. For the other backward categories (OBCs), the merit list cut-off stands at 171 — a 10-mark climb from last year’s 161.

“The qualifying scores for all categories have gone up marginally this year,” Anil Kumar, IIT-Bombay JEE chairman, said.

The cut-offs for reserved category candidates (scheduled castes, scheduled tribes and candidates with physical disabilities) have gone up by a nominal 2%. The qualifying mark for SC/ST/PD candidates had been 18% (89/480) last year. This time, it is nearly 20% (95/480).

The IITs give the SC/ST/PD candidates a 50% relaxation on the score of the last-ranking general category candidate. Those who still fail to qualify are given a further 50% relaxation, and sent to the preparatory course. This year, the number of SC candidates qualifying has exceeded the number of available seats. But for STs/PDs, the cut-offs have been lowered by another 50% (48/480) for the preparatory course.

Subject wise cut-offs continue to remain low, though they have improved a bit from those of 2009. For instance, in the open category, it stands at 19 (Chemistry and Physics) and 17 for Mathematics. Last year, it had been 11 (Chemistry and Mathematics) and eight (Physics).

For SC/ST/PD candidates, cut-offs have gone up from six (Chemistry and Mathematics) and four (Physics) in 2009 to 10 (Physics and Chemistry) and nine (Mathematics). The IITs have often been criticised for their low subject cut-offs. However, Kumar said that subject cut-offs are “used only as the first filter to decide whose result needs more detailed analysis.”

“In actuality, numbers obtained by the last-admitted candidate are much higher than these (cut-off) marks. For example, in 2009, the subject cut-offs were 11 for Chemistry and Mathematics and eight for Physics. But the scores of the last general candidate selected were 72 (Chemistry), 31 (Mathematics) and 75 (Physics),” Kumar said.

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IIT's online material now a must in engineering colleges
@ Jun 16, 2010
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http://www.mumbaimirror.com/article/2/201005242010052402284895772d9ff82/IIT%E2%80%99s-online-material-now-a-must-in-engineering-colleges.html

Dipti Sonawala

Posted On Monday, May 24, 2010 at 02:28:49 AM

The All India Council for Technical Education (AICTE) has made it mandatory for engineering institutes in Mumbai and across the country to use the online lectures and study material designed by the IIT.

The material available online is under the National Programme on Technology Enhanced Learning (NPTEL), a joint venture by the seven IITs - Bombay, Delhi, Guwahati, Madras, Kanpur, Kharagpur and Roorkee and Indian Institute of Science (IISc), Bangalore.

 

268-NPTEL video.png

 

A YouTube grab of one of the tutorials

At present, nearly 150 engineering institutes across the country access the material free of cost on You Tube and other sites.

Professor Mangala Sunder Krishnan, National Web Courses Co-ordinator at IIT-Madras, confirmed the development, saying, “AICTE has even asked the institutes to update their libraries accordingly. This access will be free of cost.”

Dr Prabhat Kumar Sahoo, director and regional officer of Western regional office at Mumbai said, “The IIT online course content would also help students in our engineering colleges to enhance their knowledge.”

An IIT-Bombay spokesperson said, “The idea is to cater to the large number of students who are unable to attend scholarly institutions. Through NPTEL, they will now have an access to quality content from IIT.

“IITs are also implementing the second phase of the project and plan to introduce around 950 courses in basic sciences and engineering, within the next two years on NPTEL.”

In the first phase of NPTEL, 250 courses have been developed. Around 4,500 hours of this content is available online for free.

 What is NPTEL?

NPTEL, a project by IIT, was launched around four years ago to improve the quality of engineering education in the country by developing curriculum-based video and web courses.

It was started along the lines of Open Courseware by MIT in the US. However, access to this content was charged. Now, it can be accessed freely on the Web. NPTEL has 4,400 videos on YouTube for 120 courses

Rs 4,600 crores have been spent under National Programme on Technology Enhanced Learning (NPTEL) till March for launching 129 web courses by Indian Institutes of Technology and Indian Institute of Science, Bangalore.

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About NPTEL

http://nptel.iitm.ac.in/

View courses available online (web/video):

http://nptel.iitm.ac.in/courses.php

 

268-NPTEL.png

 

http://www.outlookindia.com/article.aspx?265877

Open Source learning

Virtual Rendezvous

Lessons from IIT lecturers on YouTube draw millions—and not all of them are laggards

Pragya Singh

Magazine | Jun 28, 2010

Every once in a while, one of the 450-odd professors at IIT Bombay will lock himself up in an empty lecture theatre, and hold forth on fluid dynamics, mechanical engineering, or the behaviour of electrons in a vacuum, with only a silent camera for an audience—listening and recording his peroration.

Under NPTEL, a project started in 2005 by the government to digitise classroom content and make it freely available, professors in institutions such as IIT Bombay are “teaching” students who didn’t clear entrance exams by recording courseware and releasing it online, which are available on YouTube (the IIT channel has over 42,000 registered users and has been viewed 2.5 crore times since November 2007). Enthusiasts and existing IIT students who want to refresh their memory before exams are the key audience.

NPTEL will get Rs 100 crore to fund its next phase, under which volunteer teachers will record 150-200 courses for free access, as compared to the handful of courses now available. Normal education at the IITs is not disturbed—lectures specially designed for this project are delivered, recorded and uploaded in a separate studio. The lectures are also sold, in dvd form, on demand.

In addition to online material, work is about to begin on converting the video lessons into textbook format. This is an apparent reversal, but it does make sense: “The same lessons taught on video should reach people who do not have broadband access. For this, we’re going to start turning the video lectures into printed books cheaply priced,” says Prof Shishir Jha, who leads the project. Around 90 lecturers from each of the IITs currently participate in the programme.

The OpenCourseWare Consortium, an international organisation, has also roped in iim Bangalore to participate in sharing similar classroom sessions with a wider audience for free. In all, about 600 courses across disciplines will be available for free by the end of 2012. At present, the estimate is that about 70 lakh students have accessed open courses in India, while around a 100 institutions have bought, from IIT and others, their recorded open lectures.

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Varanasi News
Rs 497 crore cleared for Ganga clean-up project at Varanasi
@ Jun 18, 2010
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http://www.governancenow.com/news/regular-story/rs-497-crore-cleared-ganga-clean-project-varanasi

Union will provide 85% and UP government will bear 15% of project cost

GN Bureau | New Delhi | June 10 2010

The Cabinet Committee on Economic Affairs (CCEA) today approved a Rs 497 crore project under Mission Clean Ganga of the National Ganga River Basin Authority (NGRBA) for Varanasi. The project will set up a sewage treatment plant of 140 million liters per day capacity, lay 34 kms of sewers, rehabilitate existing sewerage systems, construct 3 new pumping stations, build community toilet complexes, renovate 26 selected ghats, develop 7 dhobi ghats and build capacity for public participation and awareness.

241-Ganga river.png

Ganga River (wrmin.nic.in/realphotos.asp?photoid=68)

The central government will provide Rs 428 crore (85%) and the government of Uttar Pradesh (UP) will provide Rs 69 crore (15%) of the project cost. The project will be executed by the UP Jal Nigam and the Varanasi Nagar Nigam over a five year period with the environment ministry monitoring implementation through a tripartite Memorandum of Agreement between the ministry itself, the state government and the urban local body. The Indian government has taken a soft loan of about Rs 550 crore from the Japan International Cooperation Agency (JICA) for the project repayable over 40 years at 0.75% interest rate with an initial grace period of 10 years.

Jairam Ramesh, minister of state for environment and forests said that the project is significant since it is the first in a series that will be based on requirements of population in 2025-2030. Normally, such projects are planned keeping existing demand in mind but the NGRBA is looking at future population and formulating sewerage treatment facilities.

The NGRBA is also supporting alternative technology in Varanasi through a local NGO the Sankat Mochan Foundation. Two technologies---advanced integrated wastewater pond system and micro-tunneling for the ghat area—are being experimented with. 

Earlier the CCEA had cleared a similar Rs 305 crore project for Allahabad. The NGRBA has so far approved 3 projects amounting to Rs 240 crore in Bihar, Rs 105 crore in West Bengal and Rs 65 crore in Uttarakhand.

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241-ganga river course.png

Ganga River course (http://www.gits4u.com/water/ganga.htm)

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Varanasi: Production house of diesel locomotives
@ Jun 18, 2010
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http://www.commodityonline.com/news/Varanasi-Production-house-of-diesel-locomotives-28534-3-1.html

Published on: May 27, 2010 at 03:15

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By Harish Kanwar

Diesel Locomotive Works, Varanasi, a production unit under the Ministry of Railways, is one of the very few factories in the World which can be truly called an integrated diesel locomotive manufacturing plant. The complete engine, underframe, superstructure, fabricated bogies and over 2000 components are manufactured under one roof starting from such basic construction materials like plates, sheets and pipes. DLW produced 258 locomotives during the year 2009-10 whereas it produced 112 locomotives in the year 2002-03.

242-DLW factory.png

Set up in 1961 in technical collaboration with American Locomotive Company (ALCO) of USA for manufacture of diesel-electric locomotives. DLW has since then manufactured over 4500 locomotives. With a capacity of building 150 locomotives per year, DISEL locomotive works is today one of the world’s largest diesel locomotive manufacturer outside North America.

In 1995, Indian Railways entered into an agreement with General Motors, USA for transfer of technology for manufacture of 4000 HP microprocessor controlled, fuel-efficient freight and passenger locomotives at Diesel Locomotive Works. Series production of 4000 HP WDG4 class heavy-duty freight locomotives and WDP4 class high-speed passenger locomotives with high-speed potential of 160 kmph has already started at Diesel Locomotive Works.

In addition to meeting the requirements of Indian Railways, DLW has been supplying locomotives to non-railway customers like port trust, steel plants, power plants and fertilizer plants. DLW built locomotives have also been successfully exported to Tanzania, Vietnam, Bangladesh, Sri Lanka, Myanmar and Malaysia, meeting diverse customer requirements.

Over 2000 components are manufactured in house at DLW. These include ALCO turbo superchargers, lubricating oil pumps, water pumps, camshafts, cylinder heads, chrome plated cylinder liners, connecting rods and various gears. Its well equipped machine shops have dedicated lines for operations like turning, milling, gear hobbing, drilling, grinding and planning etc., in addition. DLW is equipped with a variety of special purpose machines and a large number of state-of-the-art CNC machines to ensure quality and precision. All related processes like heat treatment and induction hardening are also carried out in-house. A completely new chrome plating shop for cylinder liners has been set up with modern infrastructure like fume extraction system and programmable logic controlled material movement system.

DLW has also successfully diversified into the field of manufacture of Diesel Generating (DG) sets of capacities up to 2.5 MW. More than 40 DG sets have been supplied to various customers including atomic power plants. DLW has been a pioneer in setting up quality and environment management systems on Indian Railways and is certified with ISO 9001:2000 as well as ISO 14001:1996 standards. It has also now diversified into high powers DG sets of 2-2.5 MW range. These DG sets have micro-processor controlled governor, turbine motor air starter, solid state protection relays micro-processor based control and diagnostic system. These sets are capable of automatic start-up within 10 seconds of power failure and have a frequency variation within plus minus three per cent and voltage dip of 15 per cent and have been provided with the most modern state-of-the-art alternator with brushless type excitation system and automatic voltage regulators. Diesel Locomotive Works has supplied twelve DG sets having micro-processor control with fault diagnostic system to Nuclear Power Corporation of India. These sets are custom designed to stringent requirements.

Manufacturing activities at DLW are broadly divided into two major divisions: the Engine Division and the Vehicle Division. Machine Maintenance Division and Tooling Division directly support these manufacturing divisions. In house infrastructure of Design and Development wing, Laboratories, Production Planning wing and Materials Management wing make it is a self-contained heavy engineering plant. It has a well-laid out factory, which permits uniform flow of materials, sub-assemblies and assemblies from one stage of manufacture to the next. Separate areas are clearly demarcated for Engine and Vehicle manufacturing.

Large special purpose machines are utilized for machining cast and fabricated bogie frames. In the same work area, axle and wheel disc machining is undertaken on sophisticated CNC machines. Inner diameter of wheel disc are carefully machined with the outer diameter of axles before the wheel discs are pressed onto axles, at designated pressure, using a specially designed wheel press. The complete bogie, including bogie frames, wheels and axles, brake rigging and traction motors is assembled before being sent onwards for locomotive assembly. Precision cutting and forming of sheet metal is utilised for manufacturing of superstructures including driver’s cab, engine hoods and compartments for housing electrical equipments.

Quality has been a crusade in DLW since its very inception. Modern instrumentation and machinery help the workmen in maintaining a high standard of quality. Under ISO 9002 certification scheme, all its jigs and fixtures, tools and gauges are calibrated regularly according to a carefully worked out plan. To supplement the rigorous standards of certification for DWL’s vendors, almost all bought-out items are subjected to quality checks and are certified by incoming inspection. DLW is the proud owner of ISO 9002w certificate for the entire manufacturing activities. (Courtesy: Press Information Bureau)

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* Diesel Locomotive Works, Varanasi-website

http://www.diesellocoworks.com/

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