As India along with Sri Lanka and Tanzania is celebrating their National Engineer’s Day in order to recognize and honour the contributions and achievements of the pioneering engineer Mokshagundam Visvesvaraya, lets look back at the life of one of the greatest engineers ever.
Early Life
Mokshagundam Visvesvaraya was born in September 15th 1861 in the Muddenahalli village situated in Karnataka. He did his school education from his hometown itself before doing his Bachelor of Arts from the University of Madras. Even though he did his BA, upon graduation, he felt a desire to change his career path and enrolled in the College of Science in Pune for Civil Engineering. This decision would prove to vital he is still considered as a visionary in the Indian engineering stratum.
Professional Career
Popular know in the industry as Sir MV, Visvesvaraya has undertaken many complex and challenging projects over the course of his illustrious career and delivered remarkable results time and time again. Visvesvaraya was widely considered as an expert in irrigation techniques as well as flood disaster management. During his career he has patented and installed an irrigation system that includes water floodgates in the Khadakvasla Reservoir which is situated near Pune. This has led the rise in the food supply levels in the area. A similar setup was later installed in Gwalior’s Tigra dam as well as Mysuru’s Krishnaraja Sagara dam. This shows the innovative thinking capabilities of Visvesvaraya and how he was able to come up with out of the box solutions that were result-oriented.
Apart from just being a civil engineer, Visvesvaraya was also the 19th Diwan of Mysore from 1912 to 1919 which acts as a testament that showcases his administrative capabilities as well. During his time as Diwan, in 1915, he was also awarded Knight by King George 5th as a commander of the British Indian Empire.
More than just being a pioneering engineer, Visvesvaraya has played a crucial role in imparting the awareness about engineering education as well as the engineering discipline in general. This passion of his to impart quality engineering education to the upcoming generation is further showcased in the role he played in the establishment of the Government Engineering College at Bangalore in the year 1917. This college was later renamed after him and is now called University Visvesvaraya College of Engineering (UVEC).
Throughout his professional career, Visvesvaraya has been awarded on numerous occasions including him receiving the higher honour in the country ‘Bharat Ratna’ in 1955 for his contribution towards nation development. In 2018, even Google launched a doodle on his birthday to celebrate the genius that is Mokshagundam Visvesvaraya and his endeavours have even led to Tata Steel Engineers getting into armoured vehicle manufacturing during the time of World War 2. Even though he passed away in 1962, his contributions and ideologies are still celebrated by many both inside and outside India which shows how important of a figure he still is.
