Sir M Visvesvaraya’s 160th birth anniversary
Engineer’s Day is celebrated today as a tribute to the Indian engineer and Bharat Ratna, Sir Mokshagundam Visvesvaraya. He is popularly known as Sir MV because of his innumerable contributions to the field of engineering. He was a civil engineer, educationist, economist, and scholar. He brought about major reforms in the field of agriculture, commerce, education, banking, irrigation, and industrialisation.
His expertise was in the fields of irrigation and flood disaster management. He designed the ‘automatic barrier water floodgates’ which were installed in Pune in 1903 at the Khadakvasla reservoir. He was the chief engineer responsible for the construction of the Krishna Raja Sagar dam in the Mandya district of Karnataka, and the chief engineer of the flood protection system for Hyderabad.
When he designed a flood protection system in Hyderabad, he was given a celebrity status.
Due to the system developed by him Vishakhapatnam port was protected from sea erosion.
The theme for Engineer’s Day 2021 is ‘Engineering for A Healthy Planet – Celebrating the UNESCO Engineering Report’.
Quotes by Sir Mokshagundam Visvesvaraya
• “Every man who has become great owes his achievement to incessant toil.”
• “Self-examination – not moral or spiritual, but secular – that is, a survey and analysis of local
conditions in India and a comparative study of the same with those in other parts of the globe.”
• “It is better to work out than to rust out.”
Visvesvaraya Technological University in Belagavi (to which most Engineering Colleges in Karnataka are affiliated) was named in his honour, as well as prominent colleges like University Visvesvaraya College of Engineering, Bangalore; Sir M. Visvesvaraya Institute of Technology,
Bangalore; and Visvesvaraya National Institute of Technology, Nagpur.
The Visvesvaraya Industrial and Technological Museum, Bangalore is named in his honour.
Two metro stations in India, one in Bengaluru on the Purple Line (Sir M. Visvesvaraya Station, Central College), and another one in Delhi on the Pink Line (Sir Vishweshwaraiah Moti Bagh), are named after him.