Professor Rajendra Mishra
Professor Rajendra Mishra helped establish the foundation of IIT Kharagpur which today is a world-class technological institution. By pioneering the building blocks of an engineering school – Mechanical, Production, and Industrial Engineering disciplines were set up by Prof Mishra; he also helped bring industry and Academia together – forging an alliance which has been crucial to the history of modern corporate India.
Prof. Mishra was the first Management teacher in the country and under his leadership the Department of Management Studies was established in 1954 at IIT Kharagpur, bringing his decades of experience in industrial innovations and production & resource management. Prof Mishra’s stints at various leading entrepreneurship firms, and global exposure through interactions with American and European industries, allowed him to devise a new course for a young nation.
Professor Mishra initiated the education of Industrial Engineering in India in the mid-50s and by leveraging his experience in the industry, Prof Mishra constructed an educational curriculum in Production Engineering which covered process engineering, design of jigs and fixtures, tools and gauges, applied plasticity and metrology.
Crucially, Prof Mishra started the Executive Development Programmes for Industry Executives aided by a faculty of industry and education stalwarts such as Sir Jahangir Ghandhy, Former President Shri V. V. Giri, Former Minister of Higher Education Dr. Triguna Sen, and Sir Dr. Ramaswamy Mudaliar. 700 senior executives participated in programs focused on Productivity Enhancement which ushered in modern concepts and techniques of professional management to corporate India.
He has also been responsible for the creation of the Industrial Management Centre, the first-of-its-kind in the IIT system, in 1973. Prof Mishra’s enormous contribution to the cause of education and industry was recognized when he was honored to become a Fellow of the Institution of Engineers, India, and a Fellow of the Institution of Production Engineers, UK.
The life of Rajendra Mishra is a testament and reminder of the realization of Prime Minister Jawaharlal Nehru’s stated objective for IIT. From a humble beginning in a remote village in India, Professor Rajendra Mishra left a legacy that in one way or another impacted the lives of students and staffs from the first Institute of Higher Learning.