It was the month of January, 2003. The East Coast IITK alumni and Friends Picnic had been going strong for eight years, starting in 1985. The word had spread about the IITK East Coat Alumni Picnic group.

In 1997, Dr. Mehrotra, the IITK Director and Dr. Mittal, Dean of Resources Generation, barely missed attending our picnic when they visited the East Coast. A meeting was held at Ram Misra’s house to discuss how we can contribute to IITK from the USA.

In 1999, a high-powered delegation from IITK, consisting of Mr. Narayana Murthy, founder of INFOSYS, Dr. Padmanabhan, IITK Director, and Mr. Bharthia, chairman of IIT Board, visited the East Coast and a meeting was held at the residence of Arun Mehra’66. Prior to that during the day, they had attended our picnic. Both Dr. Mehrotra and Mr. Narayana Murthy appealed to us to get more involved in the IITK related matters

Rakesh Sharma had just come back from the West Coast. There he met with Deepak Bhagat, Umang Gupta and a few others. They had created an organization, IITK Foundation, in order to raise funds in the USA for IITK. Rakesh told us that Umang had given money to mobilize alumni in the USA and If we officially form a chapter in the NJ/NY area, the foundation will give us $5000.

A meeting was held at Ram Misra’s house. It was attended by Manoj Singh, a senior executive of Deloitte, Satish Bhalerao, Kicha Ganapathy, Dhiraj Sharma, Sheo Khetan, Ajay Jain, Rakesh Sharma and Ram Misra. The first line of the business was to convince those who questioned the need for the chapter and what it was going to do for its members. In the end, all of us agreed that it was a good idea. The charter of the chapter was going to engage in the activities that will help our fellow IITKians, and IITK. In addition to our flagship annual picnic, it was decided that that chapter will become a primary interface between IITK and the East Coast IITK alumni. The other point of discussion was what to call it – NJ/NY chapter? What about PA, CT, RI, DC, Delaware? After a long discussion, we decided to call it the East Coast Chapter.

It was decided that we would create a not-for-profit organization. A two-tier management structure was accepted for the chapter - trustees and an executive committee consisting of officers and members. The first set of trustees were Manoj Singh, Satish Bhalerao and Kicha Ganapathy. The executive committee consisted of Ram Misra (President), Rakesh Sharma (Vice President), Ajay Jain (Secretary), Sheo Khetan (CFO) and Dhiraj Sharma (member).

By-laws were drafted. Satish Bhalerao knew a lawyer who took care of the legal formalities. Within a few months, we became an official not-for-profit 503 C 7 chapter. Soon after, the chapter received $5000 from the foundation. Our chapter was the first IITK alumni chapter formed in the USA. It was also decided that our chapter be included on the IITK website, which was done.

In 2005, Ram Misra gave up being president of the chapter so that he could spend more time on the activities of the IITK Foundation. He was requested to join the foundation in 2003 as its secretary. Dinesh Mital took over as the President. He served three terms till 2014. Under his leadership, the picnic reached new heights. Every year he hosted IITK DRPGs and Directors -Dr. Sudhir Jain, Dr. Manindra Agrawal, Dr. Dhande, Dr. Manna, etc.

In 2014, Ashok Saxena took over as President. He served one term. In 2017, Ratan Bajpai took over as President. Ratan’s taking over as President was significant as it signaled the retirement of the old guards and arrival of young turks. Almost all office bearers were from 1997 batches or later. Ratan started another event – a Holi Celebration. It has been highly successful.

In 2023 our current President, Saurabh Srivastava, took over. In addition to the picnic and Holi event, he has successfully arranged the IIT Kaarvan events in the East Coast in 2023 and 2024.

Mukesh Dalal took the lead in creating a hiking subgroup and arranged a number of hiking trips. In 2024, Sumeet Singhal coordinated happy hours in NY City. That has been a very successful initiative. The trustees also have gone through many changes. Our current trustees are Kushal Sacheti, Anil Bansal and Ram Misra.

In closing, we feel our chapter is in good shape. We have been fiscally very responsible. We make every attempt to not to lose money in any event we do. We still have the original $5000 that was given to us back in 2003.