Date: 03.04.

2013
University of Hyderabad
From
Srinivasulu P
08ETMM02
School of Engineering sciences and Technology
University of Hyderabad
Hyderabad-500046
To
The Dean
School of Engineering sciences and Technology
University of Hyderabad
Hyderabad-500046

Sub:

Explanation for the delay in my M.Tech project, with a request to allow the submission
of the same and continuation of PhD under a new supervisor.

Respected Sir,
I, Srinivasulu P, joined Integrated PhD in the year 2008 with registration number
08ETMM02, School of Engineering Sciences & Tech. This letter is an honest and humble
submission of all the circumstances that perceivably, however arguably, hindered the completion
of my M.Tech project. These facts, though not all of them are objective, are presented here to
assist you appraise my helplessness in continuing my PhD under such circumstances, with a
request to consider my case empathetically and to kindly allow me to submit my M.Tech
projects dissertation.
Sir, our M.Tech batch, admitted in 2008, was the first ever batch of students to
join the newly born department of Material Engineering. Seeing, for an entire semester, the
initial dismal situation of infrastructure and of academic facilities at the department, all of us
students became anxious about the possibility of meeting our Universitys high academic
expectations from us working under such an infrastructure-impaired condition. But back then, in
our second semester, no student except me had actually brought our anxiety and anguish to the
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notice of the then authorities. With this unpleasant act of mine, as I later had to presume, the then
authorities behaved vindictively when it came to the crucial juncture of allocating our M.Tech
projects. No student except me was given an on-campus project, citing the actual non-existence
of lab-facilities here in our department as the reason for sending out all other students but me, to
reputed Central Govt. laboratories like DMRL, ARCI, and NFTDC etc. I was also asked to do
my project practically under the guidance of a newly joined faculty member with no previous
experience in research supervision (though on record I was granted co-supervision by one of the
senior most faculty). When I asked our then Dean, Dr. V Srikanth Joshi to reconsider my project
allocation, he said To be worthy of its name a department should have at least one student
working here. We tried our best to satisfy every student, but we are left with you with no offcampus project left. Here you will be working with the best of our senior most faculty viz. Prof.
A.K.Bhatnagar. This is all that we can do for you. Since no plausible reason was given by the
then authorities for this exclusive and unequal treatment meted out to me, I had to presume that
my unpleasant act of raising the issue of poor infrastructure during my second semester, might
had been perceived as an act of disobedience by them. As I could see, this could be the only
probable reason for their inconsiderate decision to allocate my project here within the
department. My performance in theoretical course work of the initial two semesters, with SGPAs
of 7.23 and 7.77, vindicates my presumption of the rationale behind such an allocation, by ruling
out the only possible alternative reason viz. incompetence. Fearing further ill will from the
authorities, also allured by the prospect of working with one of the senior most faculty, I didnt
protest these project allocations, but had to silently forfeit my right to equal opportunity only to
appease the then authorities by proving my obedience. Please forgive me, Sir, if I had totally
erred in my behavioral judgments and presumed all wrong reasons; however, this perceived
injustice had not only dampened my academic spirit but also (even if the allocations were
assumed to be done with an appeal solely to objectivity and to pure reason) practically hampered
the progress of my project work because of infrastructural as well as supervisorial lacunae (as the
promise of granting the most experienced supervision did not work out later, due to unavoidable
reasons).
Our project semesters started in May 2009. For the next three months, I was kept
idle in the department, with only one visible reason viz. clueless state of supervision, by Dr.
Koteswara Rao V. Rajulapati, offering no clear objective to work upon. After few months of
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literature reviewing and project-planning (including market survey and making purchase of the
necessary lab equipment that was yet to be bought) for the then theme Mechanical Properties
of Rare Earth Oxides, the supervisor had abruptly changed the objective, thereby forcing further
delay and despair into my already systemically handicapped and methodically devitalized
project. After one full project semester, my project theme was changed to Estimation of Beta
Transus Temperature in an Alloy Based on Ti-6Al-4V. The reasons he gave for this change of
objective was that it would take much more time than the stipulated one year period and the
theme was not as related to Material Engineering as it was to Physics. As a result of this lack of
foresight in project selection, when all my classmates were giving progress-presentation by the
end of the first project semester, I was still at the planning stage.
Throughout the project all my doubts and queries were either being postponed or
snubbed by my supervisor, but were never satisfactorily or sincerely attempted to be answered.
Understanding the functioning and maintenance of the newly installed instruments and labequipment, essential for my project work, were totally left to me alone and no help was offered
by my guide with respect to instrumentation and experimentation in the lab. Having to find
solutions to all my theoretical as well as practical problems at work by myself, its progress was
constrained even further. It had also increased the communication gap between me and my
supervisor.
In 2010 June, when I was almost done with my experiments, all my certificates
and my laptop, which contained all the experimentation data with results till that day, were stolen
on a bus journey. Since we were not allotted any personal computers at our department to store
our experiments results, I had to exclusively rely upon my laptop, losing which I was at total
loss of my precious academic work. I had to repeat all the experiments during an extension
semester which was necessitated not only by my unforeseen loss of experimental results, but also
by already prevalent factors of selective exclusion by the authorities and of indecisiveness of my
supervisor. Meanwhile I had also to pursue my lost certificates and laptop being in touch with the
police officials of Anantapur District.
Added to this, my supervisor has asked me to try alternative research method
(XRD method in the place of Metallography method), saying that my previous method and its
results were not conforming to the existing literature. By the end of this extension period I had
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finished redoing all the experiments and was all set to write my dissertation. At this juncture,
contrary to my hopes of getting recommended by my supervisor for allowing me another
extension that was much needed, I was being continuously discouraged and ridiculed by my
supervisor, citing the less conforming results I obtained this time compared to my lost results.
Because of non approval of my experimental results by him, I couldnt even think of starting to
write a dissertation, though I was confident that my results were not that bad to get rejected
summarily. An eminent scientist, Srikant Gollapudi, from DMRL, had actually placed a small
portion of my experimental results, in his paper to an international journal [Material Science and
Engineering A 528 (2011) 6794-6803]. While I was anguished with my work getting ridiculed
and rejected for an M.Tech degree, I was seeing my experiment results being anonymously
commended in an SCI journal.
On the financial front, my RGNF Fellowship was stopped by July 2010 (that is
exactly when I lost my data laden laptop) and for the first extension I had to muster funds with
great difficulty. In 2011, to apply for one more extension I had absolutely no money, even after
having used up all my lending sources available. In spite of this, I was determined to go
overboard financially if I were indeed given an extension by the authorities. During this entire
dilemma, however, I was regular to the department though I was already nobody there, only to
type my dissertation on a PC at the department, as I was still hoping at least to submit my
M.Tech thesis. Saying that I had already used up all extensions and I was no more a student, the
then Dean, Prof. K Bhanu Shankara Rao had publicly rebuked me for using the departments
computer and strictly warned me not to come to the department anymore. He used to call me
The Third-year M.Tech Student etc. and I was made an object of his jokes. This had taken the
last piece of ground off my feet and I could never show my face at the department ever after that
insulting and incriminating episode.
At the same unfortunate time, my elder mother, who stood as the caretaker for my
family, was struck with cancer, which had two-fold impact on my academic future. One, it has
ruled out any possibility for my family to support me financially, even if I get more extensions to
finish my course. Two, I had to frequently attend to her health which demanded my productive
time. As she later succumbed to cancer, it had emotionally bogged me down even more, after the
entire unfriendly and unprofessional atmosphere I faced all through my course at the department.
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My gravest mistake, after all this, was spending two more years in the university
hostel as a wretched professional, financial and emotional wreck. The only reasons for this
professionally suicidal inactivity were two: failing repeatedly to convincingly communicate my
grievances to the department (because of my impoverished English language and also because
the then Dean lent no ear, humiliated me more over) and fearing to go back to my bankrupt and
disheartened family and to my nagging money-lenders. But, I utilized this forced sabbatical to
acquire a thorough conceptual grounding in my project area and also to write my dissertation
with no academic guidance or financial or infrastructural support. I am glad to inform my
department and also your earnest authority that I have now finished writing my dissertation
during last year, not before I did some selfless service to the institution. To overcome my
humiliation and career-dilemma, and also to justify to myself my meaningless over-stay, I took
up mess reforms in our hostel, as the mess secretary of NRS, during December 2011-January
2012. My modest success in curbing the corruption, spillage etc. and, as a result, also the messbasic, was well recognized and lauded by all the students and the mess-staff as well as by the
media (The Hindu, UoH Dispatch etc.). Being a practical follower of Swami Vivekanandas
ideas for the nations reconstruction, I always believed in selfless service to the collective will
surely make me and also my country a better person and a better place, respectively. Thats the
reason why as a mess-secretary, instead of exploiting the traditionally systematized made-easy
avenues of corruption, I innovated equally systematized counterchecks to all those avenues, even
when I was actually under financial distress and was, moreover, looking for more loans to apply
for another extension. Any amount of my service either to my department (by helping the now
lab-assistants and also my juniors) or to the hostel-community can never justify my over-stay
here, which I knew all through, but I did it only to fill some positivity into my otherwise wrecked
mind that was, back then, hell bent on committing suicide.
Sir, now I sincerely urge you to understand my grave situation in which it had
become extremely difficult to work under the prevailing conditions detailed above. One can
easily guess that I certainly would have worked at my best not to let my RGNF fellowship go
waste, if the system had been a little more accommodating or encouraging. Now, I have no
fellowship, but I have the project work finished, ready for submission. My project theme has so
much relevance, for the contemporary Aerospace and Bio-Medical industry, on which I had done
some significant work, I believe, which may be considered for an M.Tech Degree if it meets the
5

Universitys academic standards. Further, if awarded an M.Tech, I will gear up, both
intellectually and emotionally, to continue the doctoral program, if I were given a kind
opportunity to work with another supervisor.
I implore you again to consider my plea with utmost sympathy as I happen to be
the first generation literate from a family of rural laborers of Scheduled Caste. My failure as a
student will spell the doom for my family which had invested as many hopes in me as its
savings. Please forgive me if I crossed the line in bringing forth to your kind perusal my
grievance in its fullest detail.

Thank You, Sir.

Yours sincerely

SRINIVASULU P
08ETMM02