One luminary who deserves to be hailed as a visionary nation-builder would be our own Bharat Ratna Sir Mokshagundam Visvesvaraya, a statesman and more importantly one of India’s greatest engineers.
We often hear people being described with adjectives like ‘visionary’ and ‘nation-builder’ but it is rare that one man can be described as both. I believe that one luminary who deserves to be hailed as a visionary nation-builder would be our own Bharat Ratna Sir Mokshagundam Visvesvaraya, a statesman and more importantly one of India’s greatest engineers. Sir MV, as he was fondly called, was born in Muddenahalli. Besides being an astute engineer, he was also an able administrator who served as the Diwan of the Mysuru kingdom from 1912 to 1918.
Starting his journey as an assistant engineer, Sir M Visvesvaraya went on to become one of the most prominent builders of India in the 20th century. It was the vision, diligence and determination of Sir M Visvesvaraya as the chief engineer which led to the construction of the Krishna Raja Sagara Dam in Mysore, the biggest in Asia at that time. His pioneering methods in harnessing water resources combined with building and consolidation of dams came to be replicated across the country. Sir MV was the embodiment of Albert Einstein’s quote “Scientists investigate that which already is; engineers create that which has never been.”
Besides boosting Karnataka’s infrastructure, he was also focussed on creating the next generation of engineers and played an important role in the founding of Government Engineering College at Bangalore in 1917, one of the earlier engineering institutes in India which was later renamed University Visvesvaraya College of Engineering. It is to honor the stupendous feats of Sir M Visvesvaraya that we celebrate his birth anniversary as Engineers’ Day.
In today’s world, the application of engineering involves harnessing technology for public welfare as well as economic development of the nation. Today it would be extremely difficult to find an avenue where engineering has not left its footprint. During this pandemic, we have seen how our engineers collaborated with health officials and came up with innovative methods to help those in need.
In our role as those responsible to keep Sir MV’s legacy alive, we have taken certain decisions under the leadership of Shri Yediyurappa. These include the steps to revamp the University Visvesvaraya College of Engineering, as well as coming out with the revamped Talent Accelerator program for students across Karnataka. The Talent Accelerator program will instill the necessary engineering skills to this generation of engineers who hopefully could go on to achieve feats that would make Sir MV very proud.
