17TH ANNUAL GENERAL MEETING OF GAABESU 2024

17th ANNUAL GENERAL MEETING OF GAABESU

28.09.2024

GAABESU’s 17th AGM was held as scheduled on 28th September 2024 at the Alumni Seminar Hall of the IIEST, Shibpur campus. An advance copy of the Annual Report was sent out to all the members together with the reminder notice of the AGM. GAABESU Office also circulated to all the members, copies of the Audited Accounts Statement, Auditor's Certificate, and the Minutes of the16th AGM for review & comments, if any.

The meeting was originally scheduled at 4:30pm, but due to lack of quorum, it was adjourned and restarted at 4:50pm. As per MoA, in an adjourned & reconvened AGM, the number of present members forms the quorum. As per count, 22 members were physically present, whereas 11 members joined online over Zoom Platform. We had also received duly filled-up 'Proxy' Forms from 5 members.

At the beginning, Secretary called upon the GAABESU President, Working President and the senior most alumnus present that day in the AGM (Sri S P Dutta, 1967 CE) on the dais. On the outset, one-minute silence was observed in remembrance of the departed Alumni, ex-faculty Members during the last year. Afterward the main program started with the welcome address by GAABESU President Sri Amitabha Datta. He welcomed all members attending both physically and online. While addressing, he raised the issue of poor attendance of members, even in the AGM.

Next item was approval of last year's 16th AGM Minutes of Meeting. Since it was already circulated amongst all the Members, matter was not read out in the meeting. As no comments or observations were raised, Secretary proposed for approval of the same and it was seconded by Sri Prabir Niyogi, who joined online from Canada. The minutes of the 16th AGM was approved and recorded.

The next agenda item was presentation of the Annual Report. Though this document was also circulated in advance, but same was read out by the Secretary in the meeting, in full. The Report was placed to the House for comments / observations, if any. On the issues of the various seminars and workshops carried out by the GAABESU in last year, Sri Syama Prasad Dutta pointed out that one workshop with the Students about attending Interviews for Jobs and the Employer’s expectation etc. organised by GAABESU jointly with Civil & Mining Departments was not listed. This was noted and same will be included in the final version of the Annual Report. However, as there were no further comments, Secretary proposed for approval of the document. This was seconded by Prof Santanu Karmakar.

Following the Agenda, Secretary requested Treasurer Sri Malay Niyogi, to present the Accounts & Auditor's Statement. Since the relevant documents were already circulated, Sri Niyogi did not read the statements & figures, but instead, presented an overall picture of GAABESU financial conditions, major issues being faced as on date including all pending Income tax issues. He also mentioned about the huge Income Tax demand pending before Income Tax Appellate Tribunal due to inappropriate & late return submission of 2016-17 & 2017-18 by our previous Auditor. Since no comments were made on the accounts statement, Treasurer requested the House to accord formal approval. His proposal was formally seconded

by Sri Sushanta Sinha. House formally approved the Annual Accounts statement of 2023-24 Financial Year.

For approval of Auditor, Secretary proposed to retain the services of Sri Debashis Bandyopadhyay, who is our present Auditor and helping us in clearing all our pending IT related issues. This proposal was placed to the House for approval and this was seconded by Sri Sitansu Ghosh. House formally approved the appointment of Auditor for the current financial year 2024-25.

Following the last agenda point - 'Any other items' President requested Prof Anirban Gupta (1989 CE), who is presently the Acting Registrar of IIEST, Shibpur, to inform the house about the present situation of the Institute, specially the developmental plan being lined up under the leadership of the new Director Prof VMSR Murthy. Prof Gupta briefed the house about the present activities in the institute like, planning for rehabilitation of the old structures (hostels, college buildings including other historical buildings) etc. Also mentioned about the fresh Master Plan that is being prepared by the institute for a long-term development of the institute. Prof Gupta also mentioned about the meeting the Director & himself had with some of our senior Alumni (Sri S S Chakraborty & few others) at New Delhi last week.

GAABESU President & Secretary also briefed the house about recent interactions with the new Director. GAABESU Senior members like Prof Arun Deb, joining from USA & Prof S. S. Chakraborty joining from New Delhi, spoke about various interactions with new Director and new BoG Chairperson Ms. Tejaswini Ananth Kumar.

Prof Santanu Karmakar, Founder-Secretary of GAABESU also spoke of about the history of B E College and a specifically mentioned about a report once prepared by Sir R. N. Mukherjee (Alumni of BEC) before independence for the planned developments of the College and requested the members to give their hands in searching out that report from the old archives of either college or the National Library or even the University search for the original document.

Sri Rajarshi Ray (1995 CST), who is visiting home from USA, spoke about his ventures in entrepreneurship and also expressed his willingness to volunteer his time and thoughts in the Student Connect Program going to happen in days to come.

The meeting ended with "Vote of Thanks" by Sri Vinod Singh, Jt. Secretary-GAABESU.