Mid-term break: Six to eight hours academic schedule in the professional institutions, supplemented with a liberal dose of games, sports, literary and cultural activities during the first term provides considerable help in moulding the physical capacities and mental attitudes of the young boys, who join the polytechnics, after a sheltered life in the loving care of their homes. It is heartening to see, that, they gradually start enjoying the whole show. A short break after the mid-term examinations, brings a tremendous sense of relief in its wake and serves as a breather to enable the staff and students to charge their batteries. Holidaying and frolicking during the break and spending time with the families and friends is extremely refreshing and rejuvenating. Annual celebrations of about a week immediately after the mid-term break, facilitate smooth transition from the academic schedules of the first term to the rigorous activities of the second term.
Athletics: Group level contests during the first term inspire almost every student for participation in eight to ten track and field events at group level and thereafter, they look anxiously for their opportunities for partcipation in the finals or for witnessing the triumphal march of their buddies, who qualify for participation in the finals. The first three winners from each group were eligible for locking horns in every individual event in the finals. Apart from that every group fielded one team for each of the team events like relays and tug of war. Naturally, during the finals, the running track and marked areas for throws and jumps were always full of supporters and cheer leaders from morning till evening. The first three winners for each individual event in the finals were awarded certificates and gold, silver and bronze medals. For the team events, certificates and gold, silver and bronze medals were awarded to all participating members of top three winning teams for each event. Cut throat rivalry and the attraction of a liberal doze of medals, certificates and prizes, motivates every individual to participate and contribute much more than, what he is physically and mentally capable of doing and in course of time, that forms a normal part of training, which equips the students for facing all the incoming challenges of life.
Games: Group level matches were gradually introduced and were spread all over the first term. They served as a great inducement for all the students to participate and flex their muscles. Subsequently, inter-group finals formed a spectacular part of the annual week celebrations and brought out the best in individual effort and team performance. These days, it may be difficult to imagine that, knock out finals of eight to ten field games like hockey, football, cricket, volleyball, basketball, kabbadi, badminton, tennis, tennicoit and tabletennis can be arranged simultaneously at one place and finished smoothly in three to four days, with ten to twelve participating teams for each event. There is no catch. It is a treat to watch the students, perspiring and cheerfully playing, with all the vigour and enthusiasm from early hours of the morning to late hours in the evening. Certificates, medals and prizes are great motivators, but, ultimately the satisfaction of playing and the unsatiable urge for winning, begins to take root and by and by, the process of motivation and transformation in the behaviour and thinking of the young boys, sets in.
Literary and cultural activities: Literary and cultural activities provide the climax and culmination of the annual week celebrations. Recitations, debates, music, poetry, skits, dance and drama get the centre stage. There is jostling for finding a place on the stage as also in the arena. Parents, friends and relatives of the students keep waiting anxiously to have a look at the performance of their wards and feel enthralled, when they find, that, their shy and unassuming boy enters the stage as an accomplished performer. Literary and cultural activities provide some of the building blocks, which encourage students in the development of communication skills and facing people. Alongwith games and sports, literary and cultural activities play a significant role in pushing the boys in the realms of maturity and in integrated development of their personality.
Mohan Lal Sukhadia: Mohan Lal Sukhadia was the longest serving Chief Minister of Rajasthan. He completed his diploma in electrical engineering from Victoria Jubilee Technical Institute Bombay, where he made his mark as a student leader and came in contact with national leaders like Subhash Chandra Bose and Sardar Vallabh Bhai Patel. Thereafter, he worked tirelessly as a grassroots worker in Udaipur region during Praja Mandal days. During “Quit India” call of congress in August 1942, he went to jail alongwith top leadership of Rajasthan including Manikya Lal Verma, Heera Lal Shastri, Gokul Bhai Batt and Jai Narain Vyas. With the formation of Union of Rajasthan at Udaipur in 1948, he joined the cabinet of Manikya Lal Verma as Irrigation and Labour Minister. Subsequently, with the formation of the State of Rajasthan with capital at Jaipur, he served as a Revenue, Irrigation and Agriculture Minister in the cabinet of Jai Narain Vyas in 1951. He took over from Jai Narain Vyas as Chief Minister of Rajasthan at the age of 38 years in 1954 and continued as Chief Minister of Rajasthan for seventeen years from 1954 to 1971.
Cabinet Meeting at Ajmer in 1960: Mohan Lal Sukhadia was a popular leader, who was deeply involved in the process of integration of princely states into the state of Rajasthan from grassroots to all levels of administration. Planned development was just taking shape in India, at that time and he was responsible for fast paced development of infrastructure and health, education and other social services in the state. He mooted the idea of holding cabinet meetings in districts with participation of local leaders and government officials. One such meeting was held at Ajmer in 1960. All members of the cabinet were seated on the dias. Chief Secretary and most of secretaries involved in development activities found seats below the dias, facing the audience, which included political leaders, representatives of zila parishad and village panchayats and local heads of all government departments of the state. It was a great awe inspiring show. Popular leaders took turns to highlight problems of their area. In most of the cases, the chief minister interacted with them and explained, what was done and what was being done. In very few cases he had to get clarification from the heads of local government departments. However, he would communicate his decisions on the spot, after brief consultation with the chief secretary. Those were very different days. People from all sections of the society looked to him for help and succour and he always went all the way to help them.
Final Year Project of First Batch in May 1961: There were 60 students for diploma course in civil engineering in the final year. Superintending Engineer of Irrigation Department of the Government of Rajasthan was the examiner. After some consultation, it was agreed that the students should get an opportunity to work on an actual project to get them a feel of the conditions in the field, while providing some help to the department in the preparation of the project. The project site was about 25 miles away, south of Ajmer. A small reservoir was to be built in the catchment area of a local stream for providing water for irrigation. This involved contoured surveys of the catchment area as also the command area and alignment of the dam across the stream and the irrigation channels in the command area. The superintending engineer agreed to provide some field staff for location of the area and logistic support. The duration of project work was four weeks including one week for field survey and three weeks for drawing, design, calculations and report writing.
Field Survey: Soon, a mini-city of tents sprang up at the project site. There was a tent for every party of five students. Then there were tents for the staff and for the mess and for recreation. Triangulation stations were set up and the work was divided between the parties. Students used to leave at early hours in the morning, take their lunch in the field and then take a hearty dinner at the camp in the evening followed by a gusty campfire, which had some visitors and guests from Ajmer, almost every day. There were twelve parties of five students each. They were divided into four groups with three parties in each group. The fieldwork was divided into four parts. Two parts for the catchment area and the dam and two parts for the command area and the irrigation channel. Each part was assigned to a group of three parties for purposes of field survey. All parties were to work independently during field work, but after completion of the fieldwork the three parties forming the group were to reconcile their work for clearing omissions and errors. Finally, the four groups were to meet and stitch together the overall plans including the catchment area, alignment of the dam, command area and the alignment of the irrigation channels.
Office work: Office work involved drawing, design, calculations and report writing. This was to be done at the polytechnic individually by every student. Although, the project work was a part of the final year examination, the intention was to provide all facilities to the students to learn. Apart from the polytechnic staff, the superintending engineer of irrigation department, who happened to be the examiner, provided all possible help by providing relevent professional papers and documents and services of related field staff. After three weeks of grinding, every student was ready with his project report and drawings. And as a joint effort of all the parties, a 16 inches to a mile contoured survey map was traced on long cloth showing the catchment area, alignment of the dam, command area, alignment of the irrigation channels and position of masonry works and outlets and was made available to the irrigation department.
Placement of first batch of students in July 1961- It was very heartening to find that all students of the first batch passed in the final examination of the board and had become available for placement in July 1961. Almost all engineering departments of the government and development blocks of the state had sufficient openings for diploma holders in civil engineering and therefore, placement was not much of a problem. We talked to the students individually and placed them in contact with the departments of their liking. By the end of the month, almost everybody was able to get a place of his choice.