How State Politics Decided Which College Got World-Class Labs
In 2019, without any warning, a university in Odisha was given 50 crore to set up a renewable energy lab. It was not pressed by professors, nor was it demanded by industry. The funding was due to the fact that the Chief Minister needed to display his vision of green energy ahead of elections. Only 200 kilometers further in Jharkhand students were still doing their power system experiments on old-fashioned transformers that were older than their fathers. Here lies the ugly reality: the best colleges for electrical engineering may well be the ones most influenced by political choices, rather than student skill or faculty genius.
The Politics of World-Class Labs
Most brochures boast of shiny labs, yet few students understand the manner in which they were created. In most situations, academic planning is not funded based on merit but political influence. Nationwide programs such as TEQIP or state-based incentive grants do not access all colleges equally. The college in a politically viable district usually receives a brand new smart grid simulator and those in a less prominent district just fight to replace 1 broken oscilloscope.
Such an unequal allocation has established a silent separation. The students of certain states are taught automation using the industry-level software, and some still sketch diagrams in their notebooks as the lab equipment is not functional. This is a gap that parents often miss in the time surrounding admissions, only to regret when the moment to act has passed.
What Makes Infrastructure Political
Electrical engineering is not like computer science where most learning can be done on a laptop. The students require operational laboratories that would test the circuits, motors and grid systems. But technical education is marginalized by state politics, and laboratory becomes the mausoleum of outmoded devices. In Bihar, a few colleges have been reported to request students to purchase their own resistors and IC chips, since the department had not stocked them in many years.
And this is in comparison to the other states, such as Tamil Nadu, which have invested steadily in its technical universities to create a pipeline of well-equipped colleges. Numerous of these institutions do not merit national news coverage but are quietly producing graduates job prepared in renewable energy, EV, and automation industries. The best colleges for electrical engineering are hardly about the strength of the faculty but about whether the state government is taking care of technical education or putting it up on the photo-op shelf.
Students Pay the Price
Political influence manifests itself in the most ruthless way during placements. Recruiters can tell when the graduates are conversant with modern lab equipment and when they have merely watched them in action. One recruitment officer at a small company that specializes in solar inverters noted that it was his company policy to hire candidates who attended colleges within Gujarat since they had actually worked with solar grid simulators supported by state initiatives. Outsiders were filtrated not because they were stupid but because they were not exposed to it.
This contrast spreads out into innovation as well. No wonder EV startups and smart grid research centers tend to spring up around college campuses with well-developed labs. The availability of modern equipment stimulates experimentation, spin-offs and alliances. In the meantime, students in poorly endowed colleges continue learning innovation by watching YouTube videos, not having been exposed to tools that they will later be required to operate.
The Reason why Parents must go past Rankings
Rankings, average salary packages and hostel facilities are the bane of all families in any admission season. However these are shallow things. A much better question would be: when did this college last get a large grant to upgrade labs? Should the response be longer than a decade ago, then no rank or alumni tale will offset the lost time.
The best colleges for electrical engineering are not the ones with flashy brochures, but those where the environment is constantly updated. This does not necessarily correspond with the brand names. There could be cases where a second-tier state-funded institute in a city can give the more enriching experience than a more famous college in an area where the technical education suffers in political terms.