18 GS TECH
GS TECH: WHAT’S IN A NAME? Anmol Gupta, Karan Trichal The Institute Gymkhana Elections are just round the corner and there are some new tidings for those fond of dabbling around with tech—a new post, General Secretary Technical Affairs (GS Tech), shall be introduced at the institute level this year. The structure of the institute technical council is set to receive a bit of a shake-down this year. In this article, we look at the bearings that this change will bring on the tech scene of the institute, Students’ Technical Activities Body (STAB), and the general dynamics of all the councils. Why do we need a separate post? We talked to Chirag Shetty, ex-STAB Overall Coordinator (OC), for his opinion on the need of restructuring the post from STAB OC to GS Tech which, on the surface, appears like a nominal change. Here’s what he had to say and why this post has been introduced. On STAB being a distant cousin STAB is one of the largest bodies in the institute, comprising of about 50 Position of Responsibility (PoR) holders as managers and convenors. It acts as an umbrella-body to several clubs, has its own GCs, organizes its separate competitions and conducts various events through the course of the year. Thus, it does almost everything that other institute councils and their representatives do. In light of this, one is forced to reevaluate the current status STAB holds - which is just an umbrella-body consisting of a few clubs. Tech has played a part, at some point or the other, in the life of an average insti student. It thus seems fair to better integrate the primary tech body of the institute with its work dynamics. Lack of involvement in insti-affairs Institute councils and the various General Secretaries have a major say in the affairs going on within the institute. With no institute council for tech, however, STAB has often been kept out of the loop of some big decisions owing to its absence from the Senate and the Undergraduate Programme Committee (UGPC). It was collectively felt that an Institute technical council would be a decent way of fixing this.
Rishabh Pandey
Towards an independent body Until a few years ago, STAB was under the purview of the Academic Council of the institute, with the prevailing belief that ‘tech’ and ‘acads’ go hand-in-hand. Hence, all the proposals regarding technical matters were routed through the GSAA (UG) which was clearly inefficient and imposed a lot of constraints on the independent working of STAB. In addition to this, the STAB OC did not have mailing rights for GPO and had to send all mails through the GSAA (UG). A decision was taken to make STAB independent from the Academic Council and mailing rights were given to the STAB OC, in 2015. The introduction of this new post will be another big step in increasing the autonomy of STAB (henceforth known as the Technical Council). More competitive elections Even though open elections are conducted for the position of STAB OC, it has received few interested applicants over the years. It is no secret that very few people are enthusiastic to take up the roles of club managers as well, which is definitely a concern for such a vast body. The post of GS Tech and the new Council structure aims at ensuring more people come forward and take up these positions of responsibility. Diversification and breaking of hierarchy STAB managers are nominated by the hierarchy of the incumbent council than by any concrete objective measures. The ex-managers choose a candidate from the ex-convenors and this process has been followed over the years. The need for an alternate selection procedure was thus felt in order to bring more diversity and a wider range of ideas into STAB. Ease of communication Most other IITs have a General Secretary of Technical Affairs, or an equivalent post. It is strongly believed that pan-IIT discussion over technical affairs would certainly be eased out by the introduction of the GS Tech post. What has delayed the introduction of the GS Tech post, then? The DoSA speaks... “Each co-curricular activity that happens in the institute takes time to develop and to get more organised. People have been involved in