“Participation in National Service Scheme camps instilled a spirit of social service in me and has guided me in discharging my duties as panchayat president”, said K.M. Muniyappan, president of the Kadachanallur village panchayat in Pallipalayam panchayat union in Namakkal district.

He was among those who were conferred the Distinguished Alumni Award 2015 by the VIT University at the VIT Alumni Association (VITAA) Day 2015.

The event was held at the VIT campus here on Monday. A B.E. Civil Engineering student of the 1989 batch, he received the award under the category, `social development’ from the VIT Chancellor G. Viswanathan.

Following are the other awardees who received the awards from the Chancellor:

Academics & Research category: Anup Subhash Karwa (B.Sc. Microbiology, 2005), Founder and Director (Life Sciences), Krishidhan Seeds Private Limited and Group, Jalna; Corporate Career: T.K. Purushothaman (B.E. Mech. 1990), Managing Director (Country Head), Rosti Technical Plastics (I) Pvt. Ltd., Chennai; Entrepreneurship: Athy Pandy (B.E. ECE 1989), President and Managing Director, Mass System Services Inc (MSSI), Massachusetts, USA.

Kashyap Reddy (B.Tech. CSE 2008), CEO and Co-Founder, Hitwicket.com received the Young Alumni Achiever Award 2015.

Chancellor’s Special Awards

The following alumni received the Chancellor’s Special Awards 2015: R. Sabari Rajan (B.E. Mech. 1989), Proprietor, Anish Equipments, Coimbatore; Garimella Srisudha (MS Software Engineering 2010), Software Developer, Sapien, Bangalore, Srilavanya Paleti (MS Software Engineering 2010), Software Developer, Schneider Electric, Bangalore; Rachit Raj (B.Tech. Biotechnology 2012),

IAS Officer trainee, Lal Bahadur National Academy of Administration, Mussoorie, Uttarkhand.

Mr. Viswanathan wanted the VITAA to create a corpus fund for undertaking social development projects. Higher education contributed to the development of the society and the country.

The alumni should definitely take a lead in social development. VITAA had 14 national and 15 international chapters with a total membership of 44,000.

“The VIT alumni should be model citizens in their respective walks of life and help eradicate malpractices such as tax evasion, amassing black money and corruption which eats into the economy of the country”, he said.

Kalyani Mathivanan, Vice-Chancellor of Madurai Kamaraj University stressed the need to provide holistic education which emphasises on character-building.

“A good individual will create many more good individuals. You should give back to the institution which gave you so much”, she said.

Acharya Ajit, Founder Chairman, `India on the Move’ called upon the alumni to take up an idea, put their heart into it and work for the society. K.K. Giri, Chairman, VITAA welcomed the gathering.

V. Raju, Vice-Chancellor of VIT released TRACKS 2014, VITAA’s Annual Newsletter. Sankar Viswanathan, VIT Vice-President launched the mobile app of VITAA. Sekar Viswanathan and G.V. Selvam, Vice-Presidents of VIT participated.

The Chancellor wanted the VITAA to create a corpus fund for undertaking social development projects