Respected Elders, Gurus and my dear Alumni,

Please accept my heartfelt thanks and gratitude for your warm greetings, affectionate messages and respect bestowed upon me.

Five years at University of Roorkee's (UOR, now IIT) of learning, totally transformed me from a shy village boy to a very confident, physically fit youngster with tremendous ability to cope resulting in my selection into the Indian Army. My growth and transformation from a boy to a successful Army officer was possible largely due to the teachings and traditions of mentoring, guiding, hand-holding and a very strong human bond that exists between seniors and juniors at Roorkee, which is akin to Army Culture of mentoring and grooming of its officers.

In fact, I learned much more outside the classrooms, in the hostels, on the sports field, on the waters of Ganga canal or while participating in Youth festival and other extracurricular activities which were an integral part of semester curriculum. Abode of Goddess Sarasvati in the middle of serene campus almost at the base of Shivalik ranges and historic Ganga Canal on one side, I with tremendous sense of pride say that I am an Alumni of IIT Roorkee, the best amongst equals. Now, as I have been entrusted with this role, the time is right to give back to both, my Alma mater and IITRAA. I am fortunate to inherit a very strong global alumni base of almost 38000 widely respected and highly experienced members with diverse backgrounds. My aim would be to reach out to all of them, prepare a database and integrate them fully.

I will also endeavour to exploit the full potential of this vast and highly capable base for maximizing our collective potential for bringing in much needed improvements in our routine functioning, transparency, relevance and credibility. Like in sports, all strong teams introspect to refine their individual skills and collective team effort, similarly, together we will work upon to identify our weaknesses and initiate measures to effect improvements wherever necessary.

My interaction with fellow Alumni over the past few days has been highly, encouraging and positive. Recently IIT RAA has also initiated large number of measures to expand the database, global reach, by holding of webinars involving large number of Alumni and have constituted committees to suggest solutions to exploit IT, financial support to the families of deceased Alumni by establishment of an endowment fund and amendments of by laws by an expert committee. I am also aware of the hard work put in by my predecessors and successive executive councils to meet the aspirations of each one of you. My immediate aim would be to further strengthen the process and take steps to open new channel of communication including responsive system of feedbacks. Finally, the institute and IIT RAA should share a symbiotic relationship of mutual trust, cooperation and respect.

In fact, the institute came first followed by forming of the association later. Hence, we fully stand committed to support the endeavour of the Director, IIT Roorkee (our Patron) and his team in making IIT Roorkee the top most technical institute globally so that the future Alumni can proudly state that they are the product of best IIT in the world. I, on behalf of my entire team IITRAA, once again seek your blessings, active participation and support in realisation of our objectives in fulfillment of vision IITRAA 2020-22. Wishing you and your family members all the very best, good health and safe days ahead.

JAI HIND

Lt. Gen. (Retd.) Vishwambhar Singh
B.Arch (1980)
IITRAA President (2020-22).