India celebrates ‘Engineers Day’ on September 15th each year to mark the birth anniversary of Bharat Ratna M. Visvesvaraya.
About M. Visvesvaraya –
- Born in 1861, Sir M. Visvesvaraya made contributions to several technical projects in his career in Hyderabad, Mysore, Maharashtra and Orissa.
- He completed his engineering from the Poona College of Science. Soon after this, he accepted an offer to work as an Assistant Engineer in the Public Works Department of the Government of Bombay.
- He was 22 at that time and one of his first projects was to construct a pipe syphon across one of Panjra river’s (in Maharashtra) channels.
- In November 1909, he joined the Mysore service as Chief Engineer, ultimately assuming the position of the 19th Dewan of Mysore. He took voluntary retirement in 1918 because he did not agree with the proposal to set aside state jobs for “non-brahmin” community.
- While outside India, he fully intended to observe how the industrialised countries of America and Europe worked.
- In 1955, he was awarded the Bharat Ratna.
- Institute – He established the Sir Jayachamarajendra Occupational Institute in Bangalore in 1943. It was later renamed to Sir Jayachamarajendra Polytechnic. It was meant to impart special training to technicians keeping in mind the impending industrial development of India.
- Books – His works, “Reconstructing India” and “Planned Economy of India” were published in 1920 and 1934, respectively.
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