Homecoming 2020: Alumni reminisce their student days at Punjab Engineering College meet in Chandigarh

Over 500 graduates from 1960 to 2005 batches reminisced their student days at the annual alumni meet ‘Homecoming 2020’ organised by Punjab Engineering College (PEC, deemed to be university) on Saturday.

Unlike the previous alumni meets which were organised by PEC Old Students’ Association (PECOSA) since 1965, this year, the event was organised by the college authorities themselves.

During the day, the batches of 1960,1970,1985,1995 and 2005 were felicitated for completing their diamond, golden, coral, silver and crystal jubilees, respectively.

ALUMNI FROM OVERSEAS ALSO IN ATTENDANCE

Dean alumni, corporate and international relations, Divya Bansal, in her address to the attendees informed how the event was pulled off within five weeks and total registrations, including families of the alumni, exceeded the count of 1,000. She also shared on how the engagement with the alumni had tremendously improved in the last three months with all possible communication media used to reach the fraternity, including Facebook, LinkedIn, WhatsApp, emails and phones calls. “As a result, alumni from all over the world, including Malaysia, Australia, US, Nepal, Canada and London attended the event,” she said.

Director of the institute, Dheeraj Sanghi, also addressed the crowd on the occasion.

Representatives from each jubilee came on the stage and shared their views about the college, their batchmates and any advice they had to offer to present students of the engineering institute.

PEC authorities decided to hold the meeting this time after the Chandigarh district court, on January 4, 2020, while upholding a lower court’s November 2019 order, had declared the elections of the executive council of PECOSA for the year 2018-2020 null and void and had ordered to hold fresh elections as soon as possible. Later, a meeting of PECOSA’s executive council in this regard was called on January 25.

The oldest alumnus was the new celebrity at PEC. As Bikram Singh Grewal of 1943 batch arrived at the venue, he was surrounded by a group of alumni waiting to get pictures clicked with him. He served as the chief engineer of Patiala from 1971 to 1981.

THREE FELICITATED FOR THEIR DISTINGUISHED ACHIEVEMENTS

During the alumni meet organised by PEC, three distinguished alumni were felicitated with awards.

Among the awardees was Sanjeev Aggarwal, founder and CEO of Daksh, rated as the world’s best managed BPO company by the Black Book of Outsourcing. He was ranked the number 1 employer in Indian BPO market by India Delivery Centre and was also chosen ‘Ernst & Young Global Limited’s Entrepreneur of the year’ in 2002. Sanjay Bhatia, chairman of Mumbai Port Trust, was also felicitated. Bhatia, who graduated from PEC in 1982, has also served as the vice-chairman and managing director (MD) of the City and Industrial Development Corporation of Maharashtra Limited. Yogesh Lohiya, a 1973 graduate in production engineering was also awarded on the occasion. He was the chairman-cum-MD of General Insurance Corporation of India from 2007 to 2011. He was also MD and CEO of IFFCO Tokio General Insurance Limited from 2013 to 2017.

Another awardee, Sandeep Bakhshi, was not in attendance during the ceremony. Having graduated in 1982, Bakhshi is the director and CEO of ICICI Bank. He has handled various assignments of the group in ICICI Ltd, ICICI Lombard General Insurance, ICICI Bank and ICICI Prudential Life Insurance.