Indian School of Mines (ISM) Dhanbad is making special arrangements to welcome President Pranab Mukherjee for their 36th Convocation Ceremony scheduled on May 10. According to the mining institute administrative officers, the preparations are done considering the huge number of guests this year because of President’s visit along with Governor Syed Ahmed, Chief Minister Hemant Soren and State Human Resources Development minister Geetashree Oraon and over 1,500 others.
“Our convocation hall has a capacity of only 600 persons. But, this time President is coming so we are expecting much more gathering. A fire-resistant pandal is being made with aluminum in one of our ground for a capacity of 1400 persons. Also, the pandal will be totally air-conditioned with a temperature of around 23 degrees,” ISM registrar Col (Retd) MK Singh said on Saturday while speaking about the preparations.
Chief Guest President Mukherjee is supposed to stay here for one hour 15 minutes. Noticing this “short time” the institute administration has decided to felicitate gold medals to toppers of B.Tech batches only by the chief guest. “More than 1100 passout students of 2013 batch including B.Tech, M.Tech, Dual Degree, MSc, MSc Tech, Integrated MSc, MBA, MPhil and PhD will receive their degrees here. The list of toppers is quite long so President will be felicitating the gold medalists of B.Tech only. Also, there will be sponsor medals. We are yet to receive the number of medalists to be awarded by President,” senior ISM administrative officer Dr Mathur said.
Confirming the minute to minute routine of President’s visit to the state, concerned government official sources maintained, “President will reach Ranchi airport at 2pm. Following the protocol Governor Syed Ahmed will receive him here. After a reception of few minutes both the dignitaries will depart for Dhanbad in a helicopter of Indian Air Force. They are supposed to attend the ceremony between 3 pm to 4:30 pm. Thereafter, President will come back to Ranchi airport and return to New Delhi on the same day. State Police is responsible for management of security forces around the convocation place.”
Meanwhile, Mathur said that this would probably be the second or third time when convocation is being organized outside the hall. Referring a letter of President’s secretariat, media reports on Friday mentioned that President’s office has instructed the authorities not to go for any extra unordinary welcome to the President. The letter also mentions that President has “turned down” an offer of ISM to confer him a doctorate of science degree on this occasion stating that he is the highest authority of educational institutions of the country so such honours can never be conferred.