The Hindu Business Line : NID seeks Govt nod to go global — Plans blueprint for design policy to enable outsourcing

THIS operation has been titled `Designed in India... Made for the World'. Getting developed at the National Institute of Design (NID), Ahmedabad, this label is to become a reality in the next one decade, or thus hopes the country's design gurus. Towards this, the NID hopes to leverage its idea bank comprising hundreds of design concepts that keeps getting bigger by the year.

To mark a beginning, the NID has sought the Government's clearance for its upgradation as a `global centre for excellence' through an Act of Parliament. The new role envisages a leadership role for the institute in the country's economy through research and knowledge management-led design education. At the same time, the institute would continue to play the role of a catalyst in the field of design promotion.

The NID will set the design ball rolling by developing a blueprint for design policy in a bid to reach international standards, as has been done in the field of IT, over the next one decade. In this process, the country would strive to emerge as a design hub for outsourcing to other countries as has been done by the MNCs in areas like automobile design.

According to Dr Darlie Koshy, Executive Director, NID, the institute has begun making strides in the field of consulting by accounting for revenue of Rs 10.1 crore during 2003-04, over and above the course fee of Rs 4 crore. While the Government's grant for the year stood at Rs 10 crore, the institute disbursed almost Rs 1.7 crore towards scholarships of various kinds to its students — an area that is only getting addressed by the Indian Institutes of Management (IIMs) now.

``The next big initiative is coming at Coimbatore where the NID is joining hands with the LMW Group to set up a one-year post graduate programme in design fundamentals for graduate engineers. The product course will be offered by the DJ Academy of Design, will commence next month and will shape our endeavour to offer a larger design curriculum for engineering colleges across the country. There is no way that India can afford such a dearth of qualified design professionals in the coming decades,'' Dr Koshy said.

NID has set apart Rs 116 crore for plan expenditure over the next three years in its efforts to become a global centre for excellence. Meanwhile, the institute is also looking at a slew of new projects that is expected to cost nearly Rs 75 crore.

Both these investment heads cover the next three years, till 2007. Some of these include the Rs 12-crore post-graduate campus at Gandhinagar, the Bangalore extension campus that will cost another Rs 5 crore and the Design Business Incubator — Rs 2.5-crore joint venture with the Department of Science and Technology — that will be flagged off in August.

Even as the premier design institute of the country hopes to offer new courses such as automobile & transportation design and strategic design management in the coming days, it would be a handful of projects that will keep the NID flag flying at a larger level.

This would include the Great Arc Pavilion, the RBI Monetary Museum, the new two-colour coins from the Indian Government and the ONGC retail outlets that will soon get unveiled.

Surely, Indian design can only get stronger as it stakes its claim to becoming an outsourcing hub for the world with the NID eyeing the prospect of setting up overseas design showrooms, initially in Singapore and Dubai.