An Appeal to the COA: by Dr. Harimohan Pillai

It was in 1973 when I joined for B.Arch. course in Department of Architecture and Planning in I.I.T. Kharagpur that I heard about the Council of Architecture from my H.O.D. Prof. Dr. Rohini Lal Muni Chakraborty.

In his own sing song Bengali accent he had crooned, ‘There is a beeg brathaar who is watching you, called Council of Architecture, who will geeve the license to practice if you pass out of IIT…. provided you pass out of IIT, and not pass out in the process…’ 

Muni would grin at his own jokes and keep that grin intact till we got the joke... He also told us that our beeg brathaar was only one year older to us, hence we may become senior to many other senior architects in the race to register with COA, five years later. Perhaps he was right… when I registered in 1980 my registration number was CA/80/5719 and I could not believe that in this large country I was only the 5719^th architect.

NASA was the organization I grew fond of and proud about, among my fraternity of engineering students in IIT Kharagpur. I was instrumental in organizing national NASA convention in 1976 in IIT Kharagpur. In 1978 NASA in Chandigarh I had my first glimpse of the President of Council of Architecture. Ar. Jai Ratan Bhalla was an invited speaker. He spoke on the importance of Council of Architecture to the participating students of 17 odd Schools of architecture from all over India… well, only 17 schools were there then, yet the NASA gathering looked like a huge crowd.

During question answer session following Mr. Bhalla’s talk, I went up on the podium and asked a very simple question, ‘Sir, Why is that fresh architects are paid very low starting salary, compared to engineers… why Council doesn’t do anything about a minimum salary guarantee for fresh graduates?’

My question was based on my recent final year experience of professional practice training at Rs.150/- per month, followed by job offer at Rs. 600/- per month from M/S Chandavarkar & Thacker in Bangalore. I knew that on an average, engineering graduates in IIT Kharagpur were getting placed at a starting salary of around Rs.1500/- per month those days.

All hell broke loose when Mr. Bhalla could not give a satisfactory answer to my question. There was a huge uproar from the crowd in the form of ‘Halla Bol, Halla Bol, Bhalla Bol, Bhalla Bol…’ After a round of very diplomatic ramblings about state of profession, Mr. Bhalla had to retreat quietly from the session. History is witness that till 2016, there has been no effort by Council of Architecture to fix a minimum salary for fresh graduating architects… so my first suggestion would be:

1. Fix minimum starting salary for a graduate architect, binding on all architectural firms. Everyone knows that trainees and fresh graduates are exploited no end, especially in medium and small firms. Some firms don’t pay anything, with the excuse that you did not learn anything in school, we are teaching you real architecture…

It was to my luck that on graduation, I got a job as a supervising site architect with U.S. Embassy in New Delhi in 1979. Call it coincidence or destiny, I had my second meeting with the President of Council of Architecture, same Mr. Bhalla, this time in his office at 5, Sunder Nagar, New Delhi… the office of M/S Stein, Doshi and Bhalla who were the architects to U.S. Government on some of their projects in New Delhi, for which I was the supervising site architect on behalf of the client, U.S. Embassy!

Mr. Bhalla recognized me immediately when I stepped into his chamber. The first question he asked me with a wide grin on his face was, ‘Hari, are you happy with your salary?’

I sure was… because I was being paid by the U.S. Government! But I told him that someday the ground reality in our country had to change. I had decided to be a supervisor on site rather than an architect on the drawing board, because what I would earn on the board would be a pittance, to begin with. Mr. Bhalla waxed eloquent on the need for reform in the way of professional practice in the country and how he was trying to push forward as the President.

Fast forward from 1979 to 1992… In the span of 13 years I had worked on many a sites, some offices and started my own practice in Mumbai in 1987, along with teaching, in Sir J.J. College of Architecture. In 1992, when the floodgates were opened for promoting architectural education in the private sector, five new schools of architecture opened in Mumbai and Navi Mumbai. I was invited to be ‘In-charge’ Principal of Mahatma Education Society’s Pillais College of Architecture at New Panvel (The college never belonged to me, I just happen to a Pillai).

In the very first year of the college, in 1992, it was Mr. Bhalla, continuing President Council of Architecture, who came visiting, for an inspection. While I kept a smug smile on my face, it was Mr. Bhalla who was totally surprised to meet me again, this time as a young Principal of an upcoming school of architecture. He was pretty happy with my journey and progress in profession when I unfolded the story of 13 years. As In-charge Principal I reminded him of my old question about salary of fresh graduates and what Council was planning to do by the time my students would graduate in 1997. All Mr. Bhalla said was, ‘We will see, you see…’

All I saw in few years was that he was out of the chair which had got used to him, and a young rather unknown architect had occupied the chair. I remembered having met this gentleman Ar. Preminder Raj Mehta along with his friend Ar. Balbir Verma in an IIA conference some years back in Delhi.

So far so good. Everything was fair in my practice and teaching stints. No client ever cheated me and I was also getting proper salary as a teacher. In 1999 in the middle of my middle age crisis, I had this urge to upgrade my qualification and I applied under the Q.I.P scheme of Council of Architecture and was selected by IIT Kharagpur to enroll for PhD following an interview.

Encouraged and happy, I applied to the management of my college for protection of my salary for a period of two years, which I had to spend in IIT KGP campus for preliminary work related to PhD. The management flatly refused, although they were expected to comply with Council of Architecture norms.

I immediately quit my job as the ‘In-charge’ Principal, appeared for GATE examination and joined IIT KGP as a GATE scholar for PhD in the year 2000. However I wrote a fairly long letter to the President, Council of Architecture, with a copy to AICTE,  about the refusal of the management to support me. There was no reply.

Two years later when I met Ar. Preminder Raj Mehta, still the President of COA, all he said was, ‘Kya, Harimohan… lambi lambi chitti likhte ho aap…’

So, my second suggestion would be:

In 2008, I took a semester off from teaching, to go back to IIT Kharagpur to give finishing touches to my PhD work. While there, I heard that things were not all that good with the IDEA at Goa. While the intentions were good, the implementation of ideas of education were shady, with a floating affiliation to a university in sky going virtual with open university called IGNOU and also a side affair with YCMOU… The students were learning with practically no idea about who will give them a degree.

Having always been part of a well-structured higher education system till my PhD, I felt that a President of Council of Architecture should be setting an example of high standards while developing own school of architecture, for others to emulate. In case of IDEA, Goa, I found the going very silly, with no campus being developed, running school from rented houses, no real full time faculty to boast about, and the only full time faculty I knew, my good old young digital savvy friend also had abandoned the IDEA ship…

So when I submitted my PhD work in 2008 July, I decided to hang my educational boots by their laces. Hence here goes my third suggestion:

4. To teach architecture, PhD is not mandatory… you just have to be a good practicing architect who knows his/her detailing and building materials well… for the simple reason that the objective of B.Arch. education is to make architects capable of practicing architecture…

Between 2004 and 2016 when I write this piece of article to remain forever on my blog/website, there has been an exponential growth in the number of schools of architecture in India. I have been a big critic on the social media about this haphazard, illogical pandering to money making by ‘self-financing’ managements to whom Council of Architecture has given a free run in every nook and corner of the country, to start schools of architecture.

The Council has never done a study on need for a school in a city or region. They who give blanket approval don’t even look at own published Directory of Architects to see if there are enough architects in that city or region to support education in these schools.

The result is a natak… a drama of education being played out in every city and state, ably supported by NATA, that imbecile test of aptitude created and conducted by some private organization, in which you can keep appearing five times to prove that you are eligible to study architecture!

I wonder at the IQ of the executive committee members of Council of Architecture who have approved this latest model of NATA in the recent times. 

Grapevine tells me that a new executive committee has taken charge of affairs’ de COA.

Yesterday I got a personal phone call from the new President of Council of Architecture, requesting to support him in restoring the glory of our profession and educational system…

Well Sir, here are my last few suggestions:

5. Have just one state of the art aptitude test once a year in several locations on the same day, conducted by a Central Government agency for admissions to undergraduate course.

6. Stop periodic inspections and start periodic interactions for the benefit of upcoming schools. Make established schools mentor upcoming institutions in the region like the IIT system.

7. Create a data bank of willing experts so that they would be invited by all schools for interactions to improve educational system

8. These experts through interactions, teaching and conducting workshops would be able to report to council about academic standards and required changes in the COA Guidelines for Architectural education

9. Create a portal for parents and students to directly report/complain any misgivings about facilities and infrastructure standards in all schools.

And finally:

10. Use all of the above data to create an official Ranking System of schools of architecture in India.

That’s all, your honor…

It is an open and shut case, Dr. Watson. If there is a will, there is a way.??