Engineer's Day in India is celebrated as a tribute to the greatest Indian engineer and Bharat Ratna Sir Mokshagundam Visvesvaraya who was born on 15th September, 1861. Apart from being one of the greatest Civil Engineer from India he also served as Diwan of Mysore in the year 1912. In the year 1955 he received Bharat Ratna which is the highest honour given by the government of India. Being an civil engineer he also served as the Chief Engineer for developing the flood protection system for the city of Hyderabad as he had his expertise into irrigation techniques and flood disaster management. He was a key person in founding the Government Engineering College at Bangalore in the year 1917.
Here are 5 things you should know about Sir Mokshagundam Visvesvaraya:
1. After topping the Poona College of Engineering he was directly recruited by Government of Bombay and appointed as Assistant Engineer in Public Works Department.
2. He created automatic sluice gates which were later reused for Tigra Dam (in Madhya Pradesh) and KRS Dam(in Karnataka) as well. For this patent design, he was supposed to get a recurring income in the form of royalty but he refused it so that the government could use this money for more developmental projects.
3. Between 1895 and 1905, he worked in different parts of India:
- In Hyderabad, he improved the drainage system.
- In Bombay, he introduced a block system of irrigation and water weir flood gates.
- In Bihar and Orissa, he was a part of the building railway bridges project and water supply schemes.
- In Mysore, he supervised the construction of KRS dam, the then Asia's biggest dam.
4. He was offered Dewanship (Prime Minister position) of Mysore in 1908 and given full responsibility for all the development projects. Under his Dewanship, Mysore saw major transformation in the realms of Agriculture, Irrigation, Industrialization, Education, Banking and Commerce.
5. He was conferred with India's highest civilian award, Bharat Ratna in 1955 for his contribution towards engineering.
TERRE Policy Centre in close association with MIT School of Engineering, MIT-ADT University, Pune, India celebrated Engineer's Day with the Theme: 'Re-engineering our Future: How to mainstream Sustainable Development'. To offer valuable insights to the participants who were the young students from the colleges and faculties some prominent personalities including Guest of Honour- Hon'ble Mr. Robesh Maity, Former Vice President Mahindra Tractor, Director Engineering John Deere and Chief Guest- Hon'ble Dr. Rajendra Shende, Chairman, TERRE Policy Centre, Pune were invited.
Listen to Dr. Rajendra Shende sharing his views on the occasion of Engineer's Day.