New Delhi: The Engineer’s Day is celebrated on September 15 to cherish all the engineers of the country and celebrate the contributions of eminent engineer Mokshagundam Visvesvaraya.
Mokshagundam Visvesvaraya was born on September 15, 1861 in a village called Muddenahalli in Karnataka. He had studied Bachelor of Arts (BA) from the University of Madras and pursued civil engineering at the College of Science in Pune.
He was known as “VM Sir” due to his various contributions to the field of engineering and being a pioneer of education. VM Sir parents were Sanskrit Scholars.
Visvesvaraya’s career journey sums up to 34 years with his first job as an assistant engineer in the Public Works Department of the Government of Bombay. He later joined the Mysore service as chief engineer and had contributed to several technical projects in Hyderabad, Mysore, Maharashtra and Odisha.
The day is a homage to commemorate one of India’s finest engineer’s.
He has too many feathers to his cap, he constructed block system of irrigation in the Deccan canals in 1899, irrigation system with water floodgates at the Khadakvasla reservoir. The irrigation system was later installed at Gwalior’s Tigra Dam and Mysuru’s Krishnaraja Sagara (KRS) dam, the latter of which created one of the largest reservoirs in Asia at the time.
He established the famous Government Engineering College, now known as University Visvesvaraya College of Engineering, in 1917. This was the fifth engineering college in India. After serving as an engineer for four decades, took voluntary retirement from state service in 1918, over his disagreement with the proposal to set aside state jobs for the “non-brahmin” community.
VM sir was also called the “precursor of economic planning in India”, according to the Institution of Engineers India (IEI). His books, “Reconstructing India” and “Planned Economy of India” were published in 1920 and 1934, respectively. He was awarded knight in 1915 while serving as the Diwan of Mysore, and received Bharat Ratna in 1955.
The eminent engineer Mokshagundam Visvesvaraya left the world leaving his legacy behind in 1962. He was awarded Bharat Ratna for his contribution in 1955.