The Man Behind The Tools
Who is he? Why such a grand gesture towards a mere civil servant? Well, it can be assured that he is no MERE civil servant. Research shows that M. Visvesvaraya right from the beginning had a great flair towards engineering.
Topping his university, he was immediately appointed (without any interview) as an assistant engineer in the Public Works Department. Not bad for someone fresh out of the education sphere. Once he began working, he immediately dove right into the countries infrastructural issues, namely to do with the agricultural sector.
His design of the system of automatic weir water floodgates garnered him much praise government and colleagues alike, so much so that it was implemented in all the future designs. He would later go on to attain even more critical praise for his works in the Mysore district with the construction of what would be at the time, the biggest dam in Asia.
Awards and laurels would soon find themselves wrapped around the man as he was knighted as a Knight Commander of the Order of the Indian Empire by the British and hear words of praise from none other than the Mahatma himself. His crowning achievement, amongst all this would be handed to him in the form of the nation’s highest honour, the Bharat Ratna in 1955.
