JU alumnus’s widow pledges 1.7cr for engg lab upgrade
Times of India | 5 January 2025
12 Kolkata: The widow of a Jadavpur University mechanical engineering alumnus, Himendu Chaudhuri, pledged Rs 1.7 crore ($200,000) to modernise a measurement lab at the department that will go a long way in offering upgraded research facilities for undergraduate students. The donation was announced at JU's first Alumni Day celebration, which the alumni cell held on Saturday. The event brought together more than 300 former students.
Chaudhuri, who studied mechanical engineering and graduated from JU in 1963, went on to study cost accounting and did a bachelors in law from Ranchi. He settled in the US and became an entrepreneur and a philanthropist, besides pursuing his interests in painting and sitar-playing. He died in Jan last year. "Purabi Choudhury, wife of the late Himendu Chaudhuri, has expressed her wish to donate $200,000. A major portion of the fund will be used for the upgrade of an UG mechanical engineering lab, which will be named after Himendu. The rest of the fund will be invested as an endowment, and the interest will be used for the lab's maintenance," said JU pro-VC Amitava Datta.
Chaudhuri's son, Himadri, who attended the event online, said, "We hope this donation will help JU students get more hands-on experience and ignite in them the fire that once lit in my father." Mechanical engineering professor Dipankar Sanyal said the lab would be developed on the first floor of the gas dynamics building. "Around Rs 1 crore will be spent on buying modern instruments, like a rheometer, instrumented indentation system and a high-speed camera, and Rs 15 lakh on infrastructure development ."
The pro-VC urged the alumni for support in industry-academia liaison and placements. VC Bhaskar Gupta recounted his JU days: "At Gate 5, there was a ‘no exit' board. Now, I understand its real meaning—those who enter JU never want to move out."