Every 15th September, the birthday of Sir Mokshagundam Visvesvarayya is celebrated as Engineer’s Day. This year it is his 156th birth anniversary. He is one of the greatest engineers India has seen and a name behind many iconic constructions in India. The year 2017 will also mark the 49th anniversary of the Engineers Day in India. The day holds a great significance in the country, courtesy the fact that India produces close to 20 lakh engineers in a year.

But do you know who M. Visvesvarayya is?

M.  Visvesvarayya was born on 15th September 1861, to Srinivasa Sastry and Venkachamma at Muddenahalli village in Kolar district of Karnataka. He grabbed a degree in BA with distinction from Central College of Bangalore and Civil Engineering from College of Engineering, Pune, in 1881 and 1883, respectively. He was a highly thought of engineer who was known for his architect in harnessing water resources. He had effectively designed and constructed quite a lot of river dams, bridges and revolutionized the irrigation system in India by enforcing irrigation and drinking water system.

In the beginning of his career, he worked as an Assistant Engineer with Public Works Department (PWD) at Mumbai (then Bombay) in 1884 and afterward was requested to join the Indian Irrigation Commission. As an engineer of Public Works Department, he gave shape to several projects related to protection of public buildings, road construction and putting up city developments plans in many significant towns.

With his compelling and significant work, he was promoted to the position of Chief Engineer in Mysore State in 1909.

His distinguished and accomplished work was the system of automatic water floodgates, which was first installed in the year 1903 at Khadakvasla reservoir near Pune, it was designed and patented by M. Visvesvarayya. These gates were used for the first time to manage the floods of the Mootha Canal flowing through Pune. Later, similar gates were used in the Krishnasagar dam in Mysore, Tigra Dam in Gwalior and other large storage dams. He was the chief engineer who was in charge of constructing Krishna Raja Sagara dam in Mandya district. He was also a researcher, statesman and Diwan of the princely state of Mysore for seven years from 1912 to 1919.

The whole Engineering Community across the country marks Engineers Day every year on September 15th as a tribute to the greatest Indian Engineer Bharat Ratna Mokshagundam Visvesvaraya. This year the theme of Engineers Day 2017 is "Role of Engineers in a developing India".