NRI's family opens biotech school at IIT

NRI's family opens biotech school at IIT
PUJA BIRLA

MUMBAI, MARCH 26: Ten years from now, the story of the genesis of the first Biosciences and Bioengineering School at the Indian Institute of Technology-Mumbai (IIT), to be inaugurated on Monday, will pass into legend. Today it reads simply as the vision of a family that wanted to do something in the area and could afford it.

When Rahul Mehta, a 40-year-old Houston-based technocrat, visited his family in Mumbai in January last year, biotechnology seemed like hot property, but not many in India were as crazy about it as they were about Information Technology (IT).

One evening, when Mehta was chatting with some of his sister's friends from IIT, discussing the latest research and development trends, he learnt that the potential of the biotech revolution had hardly been gauged. It seemed like the ideal time and place to start something in this direction.

``IT had been overdone and I realised no one was thinking of biotechnology in terms of its potential to help people and even in terms of economics. If IT has brought in business worth, say, $3 trillion, biotech will touch 10,'' says Mehta, who has been involved in systems management and developing internet software for the last 20 years. The intrepid bachelor, whose interests include trekking and travelling, has also attempted to scale Everest and trekked across the Grand Canyon.

Now keen to do something in India for reasons that include sentimentality, Mehta felt that IIT-Mumbai would be the best place to give shape to what he had in mind. Since Mehta's sister, Nisha, had done her BTech from the Powai campus in 1984, he was familiar with the research ethic and academic standards of IIT and felt it was the perfect place for a bioscience and bioengineering school, he told The Indian Express at the family residence in Mulund.

Belonging to the less-noise-more-action breed of NRIs, Mehta soon initiated talks with the IIT management and drew positive results. One had the vision and the money, the other, the expertise and the space. A final decision was taken in September last year, Mehta said.

Philanthropy is not new to the family. Named after Mehta's parents, the Bhupat and Jyoti Mehta Family Foundation has been offering financial aid to students in the United States and assisting them in research projects and healthcare, with the aim of helping rural and poor communities across the world.

With an initial budget of Rs 55 crore, a substantial amount of which will be given by Mehta's family foundation, the school will begin admitting students in Master's, doctorate and post-doctoral courses in July 2001. So how much is ``a substantial amount''?

Again, why biotechnology, especially since none in the family are experts in the field. According to Mehta, their knowledge of the field has been acquired from voracious reading of scientific journals.

But IIT itself is not starting from scratch in the area of biotechnology. ``About 25 existing faculty members across various departments who have been working at some aspect of biotechnology will continue their research formally under this school,'' says IIT Director Ashok Mishra. About 50-60 per cent of the funds will go into construction of the buildings, which should be ready by mid-2002. Some of the money will be used for paying salaries of staff, scholarships for students and research funding. Mishra also says that IIT is open to other sources of funding, including the industry.

The biotech school at IIT is the first project of its kind undertaken by the foundation and definitely the first in Mumbai, but the Mehtas prefer not to divulge exactly how much they have contributed. ``The choice was between buying a jet or funding such a project,'' jokes Mehta, emphasising that better research for better healthcare facilities is the foundation's only aim. Hopefully, that will inspire many more.