The 17th annual convocation of SVNIT was held on Sunday.

SURAT: “Learning should be continuous as our former President Sarvepalli Radhakrishnan used to say. Because the habit of reading is one of the greatest resources of mankind,” Dr. V Narayanan, director , Liquid Propulsion Systems Centre , ISRO , said here on Sunday.

Dr. Narayanan, an authority on cryogenic propulsion, who was the guest of honour at the 17th annual convocation of Sardar Vallabhbhai National Institute of Technology (SVNIT), described several achievements of ISRO in his speech. “In 1967, we launched the first indigenously developed rocket. Today we have developed a number of rockets and five generations of launch vehicles from SLV3 to GSLV MK-III. From the humble beginning with the launch of spacecraft Aryabhatta with help of Russia, we have till now launched 343 spacecrafts,” he said.

Dr. Narayanan said ISRO was building 50 spacecrafts within next two and half years.

Prof. Anil D. Sahasrabudhe, chairman, All India Council for Technical Education (AICTE), was the chief guest at the convocation where 1,203 students were conferred degrees by the senate in the presence of their parents. Of those who received their degrees, 727 were students of BTech, 259 of MTech., 80 of PhD and 137 of MSc.

Prof Sahasrabudhe pointed out that SVNIT was currently ranked 58th in the country among the engineering colleges and that it has made an improvement by three ranks. “The SVNIT has all the infrastructure and potential to be placed among top 30 colleges. SVNIT is good enough to compete with the IITs,” he said.

“Educational institutes should keep on improving like the industries. We should also revive curriculum and undertake teacher training,” Prof Sahasrabudhe added.

In his welcome address, SVNIT director S R Gandhi shared details about the progress made by the institute. He said the SVNIT researchers had undertaken 65 research and development projects worth Rs30 crore in the recent past.

