Engineer's Day 2020: Know about the renowned engineer Sir Mokshagundam Visvesvaraya

Engineers Day is observed in India to pay tribute to India's first engineer, Engineer Bharat Ratna Mokshagundam Visvesvaraya.

Mokshagundam Visvesvaraya was also known as Sir MV; he was born in 1861 in Muddenahalli village in Karnataka. He completed Bachelor of Arts (BA) from the University of Madras and pursued civil engineering at the College of Science in Pune.

Sir MV was known as the father of Modern Mysore for his outstanding contribution to society.

He was very well known for the designed and patented automatic water floodgates in 1903, which were at first installed at the Khadakwasla reservoir, in Pune to raise the flood supply level and storage to the highest levels. This was installed at Gwalior's Tigra Dam and Mysuru's Krishnaraja Sagara (KRS) dam, the latter of which created at that time was one of the largest reservoirs in Asia.

Sir Visvesvaraya established Government Engineering College in 1917, in Bengaluru which was later named as University Visvesvaraya College of Engineering in his honour.

The Indian government honoured him in 1955, with the Bharat Ratna honour for his numerous industrial, economic and social projects. While serving as the Diwan of Mysore from 1912 to 1918, he was conferred the 'knight' by King George V in 1915, which add the honorific 'sir' before his name.

Sir MV became a member of the London Institution of Civil Engineers before he was awarded a fellowship by the IISC (Indian Institute of Science) Bangalore. He was a renowned precursor of economic planning in India.

Mokshagundam Visvesvaraya's memorial stands at Muddenahalli that is managed by the Visvesvaraya National Memorial Trust. His name lives on through several universities including Visvesvaraya Technological University in Belagavi.

The renowned and outstanding engineer, Mokshagundam Visvesvaraya, left the world in 1962.