Shri Sam Pitroda
Adviser to Prime Minister – Public Information
Infrastructure and Innovations
Planning Commission, Yojana Bhawan
Parliament Street, New Delhi 110 001
18. March 2011
Dear Shri Pitroda,
As you are aware, DIPP in the Ministry of Commerce and Industry
has announced an RFP inviting bids to plan the setting up of four
new National Institutes of Design (NIDs) across India.
The design community of India and NID alumni are concerned
about the process being adopted for the setting of these new NIDs
as we feel greater emphasis needs to be placed on creating a
vision document for these institutes given their critical role in driving
innovation. This vision document should incorporate the collective
wisdom of design professionals, educators and other stakeholders
on the conceptual framework prior to planning the physical
infrastructure and corresponding funding models.
We had earlier shared our concerns with you on behalf of the
design community which has been actively interacting on this issue
for the past six weeks on social networks and online forums.
As advised by you, we had a meeting with Shri V. Bhaskar, Joint
Secretary, DIPP and his colleagues and presented our thoughts on
how we feel design education needs to be envisioned for the future.
While they were receptive to our comments and suggestions, we
were informed that their RFP process would continue as planned.
However, we were assured that broad consultations with design
professionals and practitioners would be organized after the release
of the draft report by the department.
The group gathered here today to meet with you, consists of Design
Entrepreneurs, Educators and Design Thinkers, who are here
because we believe in the cause of better Design Education for
India. We represent the larger Indian design community who are
spread across India and the globe and continue to debate this issue
online.
We would like to outline below for your perusal the continuing
issues and concerns of the design community:
• More thought needs to be put into evaluating emerging directions
in design education to ensure a more robust and relevant
framework for expanding the design education infrastructure in the
country.
• The PPP process as outlined in the RFP may lead to teaming up
with agencies who may leverage the valuable NID brand created
over the last 50 years for short-term ends. This will not be in the
best interests of the profession or the nation. The funding model
needs to be formulated in a manner that does not compromise the
integrity and long-term approach essential to good design.
• The stringent financial criteria applied on the potential bidders
exclude most NID graduates who could potentially contribute a
relevant vision and real world orientation to the process.
• There is an urgent need to invest in human resources (especially
teachers) trained to deal with these new design paradigms.
• Government funds could be more appropriately utilized by rightsizing
the envisaged institutes and broad-basing design
consciousness from primary school to professional education.
• It will be a disservice to the nation if we do not create an
appropriately scaled design-education infrastructure that is
contemporary, globally connected and richly informed by the local
context.
While thanking you for your support to this initiative, we look
forward to your guidance in the matter.
With regards,
MP Ranjan
Deepak Pathania
Indrani De Parker
Sudarshan Khanna
Sumita Sarkar
Hridayesh Deshpande
Vasant Mehar
Niladri Mukherjee
Rajesh Dahiya
Amit Krishn Gulati
Sudhir Horo
Jatin Bhatt
A. Balasubramaniam
Pradeep Sinha
Sagarmoy Paul
Navin Pangti
Rashmi Korjan
Vision First 