Nobel laureate Abhijit Banerjee on Saturday called upon graduating students of IIT Delhi to provide the "extra edge" for India to become the nation everyone aspires it to be.

At the 53rd convocation of the Indian Institute of Technology (IIT), Delhi, he endorsed India's first prime minister Jawaharlal Nehru's vision that if there is a justification for the IITs, it has to be in terms of what one can do for the nation.

"We need people like you to provide that extra edge that we need to be the nation that we aspire to be. For that, I have to say that I want you to not stop now. Keep trying to transform."

"We are in a place where we have great ambitions, we have great problems. And that's where great talents step in. So be optimistic and think of yourself as a key agent of change," Abhijit told the students.

"Of course, there are a thousand ways to be useful to the nation. You could do something amazing in science and make the nation proud. You could set up a global company and provide employment to hundreds of thousands of people. You could invent a drug and save millions of lives," he added.

The noted economist said termed the graduating students among some of the select ones and asserted that the nation needs them.

"You have crossed so many hurdles to get here. The nation needs you. Nehru had great faith in technology. I entirely endorse Nehru's vision that if there is a justification for the IITs, it has to be in terms of what you can do for the nation," Abhijit said.

A total of 21,000 graduating students were awarded degrees and diplomas at the convocation ceremony.

For the first time, students got degrees and diplomas in Joint PhD (IIT Delhi and NYCU, Taiwan), joint PG Diploma in Visionary Leadership for Manufacturing (jointly with NITIE Mumbai), MS (R) in Sensors, Instrumentation, and Cyber-Physical Systems Engineering, MSc in Cognitive Science, and MSc in Economics.

The institute also awarded the President's Gold Medal, Director's Gold Medal, Dr Shankar Dayal Sharma (Former President of India) Gold Medal, Perfect Ten Gold Medal and Institute Silver Medal to meritorious students.

R Chidambaram, Chairperson, Board of Governors, IIT Delhi, said, " the IIT system has a very high global brand equity; and among them, IIT Delhi is ranked at the top. We have world-class faculty, who continue to get recognition from within India and abroad."

"We have leading research workers in IIT Delhi in various advanced research areas in the engineering sciences and others, ranging from high technology fields to pure sciences, and also social sciences, along with the interaction of the latter with science and technology".

"Uniquely, India now is an economically developing country where parts of the Science and Technology system are highly developed, like space and nuclear and some areas of defence. And we have world-class academic institutions like the IITs," he added.

The institute also honoured its 13 esteemed alumni with the prestigious Alumni Awards 2022 - Distinguished Alumni Award (DAA), Graduates of Last Decade (GOLD) Award and Distinguished Alumni Service Award (DASA).