Day 52 – Q 5.India has produced some the most talented engineers that the world has seen. Can you discuss the contributions made by at least three such engineers?

5. India has produced some the most talented engineers that the world has seen. Can you discuss the contributions made by at least three such engineers? 

भारत ने कई प्रतिभाशाली इंजीनियरों को जन्म दिया है। क्या आप कम से कम तीन ऐसे इंजीनियरों के योगदान की चर्चा कर सकते हैं?

Introduction:

Indian engineers are renowned for their research and skills worldwide. Engineering in India can be traced to ancient civilizations. Engineers of ancient India were responsible for designing everything from complex water supply and drainage systems used by the extinct Harappa and Mohenjo Daro civilizations. This is reflected till present day with extensive contribution from Indians in engineering field.

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• The country is undergoing industrialization and working towards self-reliance in almost every sphere. The Indian government rightly deserves full credit for advancing meaningful research of engineering and science in India.
• India is home to some of the best engineering colleges in the world. These include College of Military Engineering, Indian Institute of Technology, National Institute of Technology and Indian Institute of Space Science and Technology, among others.
• Modern initiatives like ‘Make in India’ and ‘Skills India’ are providing a great platform for developing the industrial base of this country by promoting indigenous technologies and research as well as advanced skills required by foreign companies and other organizations that are eyeing investments in this country.
• According to a report published by global researcher and publisher, Elsevier, institutional collaboration in India accounted for 46 percent of impressive research and scholarly output while 16 percent was through tie-ups with foreign universities, companies, and other organizations.

India has produced many eminent engineers since ages, some of them can be as seen below :

• Mokshagundam Visvesvaraya – was an Indian engineer, scholar, statesman and the Diwan of Mysore from 1912 to 1918. He is a recipient of the Indian Republic’s highest honour, the Bharat Ratna, in 1955. He was knighted as a Knight Commander of the British Indian Empire by King George V for his contributions to the public good. Every year, on his birthday, September 15 is celebrated as Engineer’s Day in India. He is held in high regard as a pre-eminent engineer of India. He was the chief engineer responsible for the construction of the Krishna Raja Sagara dam in Mysore as well as the chief designer of the flood protection system for the city of Hyderabad.
• E Sreedharan – He is known as the Metro Man of India. He was a retired Indian Engineering Service (IES). He has done a lot to improve  public transport in India. He received his secondary education at Basel Evangelical Mission Higher Secondary School. He completed his Civil Engineering from theGovernment Engineering College, Kakinada, Andhra Pradesh known as JNTUK. Commonly known as the ‘Metro Man,’ Mr Shreedharan is the most-renowned civil engineer India has produced in the past few decades. His work with the Delhi Metro, the Kolkata metro, and many more metro projects across the country are well documented, making his moniker a well-deserved one.
• A P J Abdul Kalam – He is known as the missile man of India. He also served as the 11th President of India  from 2002 to 2007. APJ Abdul Kalam was born on 15 October 1931 at Rameswaram on Pamban Island, then in the Madras Presidency. He graduated from the Madras Institute of Technology in 1960. Then he joined  the Aeronautical Development Establishment of the Defence Research and Development Organisation (DRDO) as a scientist. Kalam died on 27 July 2015 while delivering a lecture on “Creating a Livable Planet Earth” at the Indian Institute of Management Shillong.
• Satish Dhawan – He is known as the father of experimental fluid dynamics research in India. Dhawan was born in Srinagar on 25 September 1920. He graduated from University of the Punjab in Lahore (now Pakistan) where he completed a Bachelor of Science in Physics and Mathematics, a Bachelor’s degree in Mechanical Engineering. To honour his works in rural education, remote sensing and satellite communications satellite launch centre at Sriharikota, Andhra Pradesh was renamed the Satish Dhawan Space Centre.
• Vinod Dham – He is known as the Father of Pentium microprocessor chip, a very popular term in the computer world. Vinod is also co-inventor of the flash memory technology, popularly known as SD cards widely used in USB drives, digital cameras, and many other storage devices. He holds a graduation degree in Electrical Engineering from Delhi College of Engineering. Presently Vinod is founding MD of Indo-US Venture Partners, an investment company with a focus on investing in Indian companies & start-ups of varied sectors. He is one of the top engineers in India

But at the same time, a recent survey carried out by Aspiring Minds has revealed that only 7% of engineering graduates in India are employed. According to this same report, only 3% of engineers in India have the suitable skills required to get a job in core sectors of engineering. Around 1.5 million engineers in India are released every year from various colleges but most of them simply do not have the skills required to be employed.

Conclusion

It is very unfortunate that the US imports most of the engineers from India when our own country is facing the crisis of quality and skills. Today, the market is looking for qualification along with certification. So, it becomes important for engineering institutions (especially private institutions) to create quality engineers instead of just giving away certificates. Today’s India needs an engineer like Visvesvaraya to drive this transformation with the same clarity, dynamism and courage to speak truth to power.