India celebrates Engineer’s Day on September 15 to acknowledge the contributions of well known engineer Mokshagundam Visvesvaraya who was born on September 15, 1861 in Muddenahalli in Karnataka.
He studied Bachelor of Arts from the University of Madras and then did civil engineering at the College of Science in Pune.
Due to his various contributions to the field and being a pioneer of education, he is also called as “VM Sir”.
Sir VM was recognized for engineering the Krishna Raja Sagara Dam located in Mysore. Also, he was one of the Chief designing engineers for bringing up a system for flood protection in Hyderabad.
India’s legendary dam builder was populary also called Sir MV.
He was appointed Chief Engineer of Mysore State in 1909, given the status of Diwan of Mysore in 1912, awarded the Bharat Ratna in 1955. He was also knighted by George V.
Sir VM referred as “precursor of economic planning in India”, according to the Institution of Engineers India (IEI).
He’s written two books – Reconstructing India and Planned Economy of India.
Here are 5 things you should know about Sir MV:
1. After topping at Poona College of Engineering he was directly recruited by Government of Bombay and appointed as Assistant Engineer in Public Works Department without giving interview.
2. He created automatic sluice gates which was 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 and said that the government could use this money for more developmental projects.
3. In Bombay, he introduced block system of irrigation and water weir flood gates.
4. In Bihar and Orissa, he was a part of the building railway bridges project and water supply schemes.
5. In Mysore, he supervised the construction of KRS dam, the then Asia’s biggest dam.
Some of the honors conferred on Sir M.V.
| 1953 | Awarded the Honorary Fellowship of the Institute of Town Planners, India |
| 1955 | Conferred ‘Bharat Ratna‘ (The gem of India), the highest distinction of the country |
| 1904 | Honorary Membership of London Institution of Civil Engineers for an unbroken period of 50 years |
| 1958 | ‘Durga Prasad Khaitan Memorial Gold Medal’ by the Royal Asiatic Society Council of Bengal |
| 1959 | Fellowship of the Indian Institute of Science, Bangalore |