It was back to the sunny grounds of good old campus for the alumni of BIT-Sindri, as more than 200 old students of the tech cradle made their presence felt at the daylong reunion programme that was held in Dhanbad on Sunday.

The event, dubbed 23rd Alumni Reunion and organised by the BIT-Sindri Alumni Association, with its quota of fun, food and crazy dancing — the usual ingredients for any such meet — came with a tinge of difference, however, with former students chipping in with sponsorships for scholarship programme being run by their alma mater.

While some wrote generous cheques to the scholarship fund, some others left the institute with a promise of getting their companies to the BIT campus during the placement season. Keeping up with the mood, Jharkhand State Electricity Board (JSEB) chairman S.N. Verma, the chief guest at the occasion, promised that the institute would receive uninterrupted power supply from December.

Earlier in the day, the programme kicked off at the Deshpandey auditorium of the institute on a cultural note, with members of the institute’s students’ society and art club, presenting a welcome song, followed by a dance performance.

Next in line was a rendition of Kailash Kher’s Teri Deewani by 3rd year BTech student Nilam, which was appreciated by the audience with a generous round of applause.

A group of underprivileged children, who had been trained by the institute’s student society Prayaas India, next burned the stage with their moves on Anand Raj Anand and Sunidhi Chauhan’s Mast Punjabi.

JSEB chairman Verma then took the stage to address the gathering of students. Verma, who is an alumnus of the institute, during his speech said that the cradle was returning to its former days of glory, with the placement figures already touched 90 per cent.

“We are trying to rope in government support for further development of the infrastructure, including the hostels of this technical cradle,” he said.

Director of the institute S.K. Singh, in turn, appealed to the former students to help work towards the generation of funds and resources that could be used for development. He also asked the alumni employed with top-notch industries to bridge the gap between the industries and the institute.

Later, members of the North America Chapter of BIT Sindri Alumni Association presented cheques of Rs 4000 each to about a dozen top ranking students.