The Institution of Engineers (India)
In a tete a tete with Built Constructions, Dr. L V Muralikrishna, President, Institute of Engineers (India) touches upon the current needs of engineering segment from quality enhancement in education to skills up-gradation and to Engineer's Bill.
Engineers are key figure in material progress of the world.'A world-class engineer, regardless to the job he is engaged in, is always considered as an asset to the nation and the society; as it is he who makes a reality of the potential value of science by translating scientific knowledge into tools, resources, energy and labour to bring them into the service of the country. Identifying the need of engineers for nation building, British government initiated the Institution of Engineers way back in 1920 at Chennai, later shifted to Kolkata.
In the last nine decades, IEI has become the largest multidisciplinary professional body that encompasses 15 engineering disciplines. "Ever since IEI was incorporated by Royal Charter in 1935, to regulate and support engineering community the association has grown progressively. With an initial focus on civil, mechanical and electrical, IEI has spread its focus to 15 engineering streams in total," says Dr. L V Muralikrishna Reddy, President, The Institution of Engineers (India).
The Karnataka centre of IEI was established in 1934 at Bangalore. Widening its horizon of technical activities, the centre has established its local centres at Mysore, Dharward and Mangalore among others.
"Engineering colleges are mushrooming like never before and hence it's a time for us to deeply focus on quality enhancement of education. Our Associate Membership Institute of Engineers (AMIE) is being pursued to remain on par with other examination systems and ensure increased employability for students, thereby increasing acceptability with government and employers. Many of the IEI stalwarts are leading practitioners of engineering in the industry, academy and policy making," adds Dr. Reddy.
National Design and Research Forum (NDRF)
NDRF has emerged as an important research centre and its collaborative research ecosystem that fosters participation by academia, industry and research organisation with a robust knowledge management process and framework has been successful in delivering significant research output to India's major collaborative research initiatives and programmes.
Ever since NDRF was started in 1969, it has fostered several technologies. Recently, IEI has developed micro air vehicles that are suitable for disaster and surveillance applications. This application is on par with European standards. By partnering with institutions such as IIT-Kharagpur, IIT-Chennai, IIT-Mumbai and IISc Bangalore, labs like DRDO, National Aerospace Laboratory and few private engineering colleges, IEI has formed a consortium and taken up 80 latest projects mainly in the areas of electronics and sensor development. "A feasible report has been submitted by us on the 225-year-old Tipu Sultan's armoury translocation. The armoury, which has come in the way of the Mysore-Bangalore railway doubling project, is likely to be lifted as one unit and moved 90 metres away at the earliest. This could be the first such attempt at moving a heritage structure in the country. The Railways department and the government of Karnataka has assigned Institute of Engineers, Bangalore Chapter, as a consultant, may call global tenders inviting agencies involved in bodily moving structures or houses. Though such an exercise has not been undertaken in India, there are a few agencies in the US, Switzerland, Australia and Canada that have moved churches and houses. However, moving this two-century-old structure could be a challenge," he adds.
Engineers' Bill
IEI has been striving hard with other prominent professional bodies of India to convince HRD Ministry to initiate necessary steps to bring Engineers Bill into an act of parliament since 2000 onwards or even before. Final consensus draft engineers' bill with the signature of the representatives of professional bodies was submitted by IEI on 31 May 2007 and since then concerted efforts by IEI are being made to bring this into an Act. IEI has liaised with the former HRD Ministers, present Minister and senior level bureaucrats of HRD to convince them that engineers bill is very much required to regulate engineering profession.
"President, IEI convened a meeting on 13 May 2015 to seek opinions of professional organisations about the urgency of Engineers' Bill. They all agreed that IEI should take a lead being the largest professional body in India to take forward draft Engineers Bill into an Act of Parliament. Further meetings are being organised by IEI to frame strategy about how to influence HRD Ministry to get the bill passed by the Parliament," he added.
Engineering Staff College of India (ESCI)
Commenting on acute shortage of skilled resources especially in the construction industry, Dr. Reddy, says, "IEI should participate in the national skill development initiative, 'Skills India' aligned with National Vocational Education Framework at two levels such as IEI by collaborating with central and state governments by focusing on developing quality content and standards to deliver to the needy and IEI should engage with industry by establishing knowledge partnerships and alliances with the industry for continuous industrial needs."
Engineering Staff College of India, an initiative of IEI is a 70 acre campus in Hyderabad that conducts about 300 different training programmes, every year. It gives thrust on sustainable engineering programmes, including adequate infrastructure development. "ESCI is doing substantial work with organising quality training programmes and has great potential to become an international hub for continuing education by serving the international training requirements, particularly members of the WFEO, FEISCA, FEIAP, SAARC and UNESCO," he adds.
The ESCI roadmap aims to cover the transition from the current to the desired future state in the next five years with short and long term performance targets and a comprehensive strategy for accomplishing the objectives. He adds, "We give specialized training programmes for the civil discipline particularly for the infrastructure and quality control related areas. ESCI has a consultancy wing that has drift irrigation project. We have a civil engineering lab, which has a protolab."
To produce more and more engineering and technical personnel from India to take on the global challenges, the following steps may be undertaken by way of reorientation of the curriculum and process of training and skill up-gradation:
- Awareness about the global nature of the profession, and the challenges and opportunities,
- Exposure to tackle complex, real-world problems,
- Accepting challenges and solving them with wisdom
- Acquiring knowledge and expertise through lifelong learning,
- Familiarity with other engineering and scientific disciplines so that trans-disciplinary problems can be tackled,
- Persuasion for opportunities to apply skills in both traditional and non-traditional fields to meet societal needs,
- Communication with other highly recognized international leaders in engineering, and finally
- Establishing themselves as personalities with high ethics.
Sustainability
The global thrust on sustainability has brought to fore the need for new skills and has created new job avenues that are in line with nations' steps to protect ecosystems and bio-diversity, de-carbonize, reduce energy, materials and water consumption, amongst others. IEI is in a position to support global initiative of creating 'green jobs' by offering effective and affordable training and certification.
Out of 15 different engineering streams, civil engineering acquires a major share at IEI. "We have a strong civil engineering team with us. Our corporate membership is about 2 lakhs of which 42% are civil engineers. Major strength of IEI is Civil Engineering," he states.
IEI has an arena of civil engineering activities--Sustainability Development Forum at Patna highlights on campus programmes and brings in components like power, solid waste management, rainwater harvesting. In addition, Rural Development Forum at West Bengal, Safety and Quality Forum at Delhi handle construction safety and quality related skill development programmes.
Bilateral Agreements
IEI has close to 32 bilateral agreements. Major agreements are with world federation engineering organization (which has 91 countries as its partners). In association with WFEO (an initiative by UNESCO), we are working on to restore Konark temple. Along with FEIAP and FEISCA we are helping Nepal earthquake victims to rebuild their house through our counterpart in Nepal.
In a recent visit to Russia, IEI has signed a MoU on exchange of technological expertise, which has encouraged starting International Technology Transfer Centre. We are also trying to identify technologies that can be shared with other countries as well. We are planning to start IEI centre at Malaysia. With our foreign collaborations, we aim to join hands with overseas countries in the areas of academics, R&D and funding.
Being a member of fib (Federation internationale du beton / International Federation for Structural Concrete) is an honour to any country. "In addition, India is the only country that has five representations in FIB. However, we are planning to have an Indian wing of FIB soon," he states.
"It will be my endeavour to build a healthy synergy between the governments and the IEI across the lifecycle encompassing programme planning, implementation and monitoring. I envisage IEI's participation to be at three levels in the planning process sector-wise, programme based and project-specific. The outcomes of deliberations of division-wide programmes would be effectively shared with the government and industry to facilitate sector-wide transformations or improvements. This engagement with the government will be one of the steps to help re-establish the pristine position of the IEI," concludes Dr. Reddy.'
Profile of Dr. L V Muralikrishna Reddy, President, Institution of Engineers (India)
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Dr. L V Muralikrishna Reddy is the youngest-ever person to occupy the exalted office of the President of Institution of Engineers (India) spanning over the last 94 years.
Dr. Reddy obtained his Bachelor's degree in chemical engineering, Master's in Energy Systems and doctorate in Energy Management. He pursued research work at the University of Kentucky, USA as a Post-Doctoral Fellow.
As Director of the National Design and Research Forum (NDRF), the R&D wing of IEI, he has been instrumental in building a viable and successful national research ecosystem to promote industry-academia collaboration. He has established the teams, |
| Dr. L V Muralikrishna Reddy |
processes and tools for applied R&D and has successfully led interdisciplinary research programmes to develop solutions for a wide range of complex engineering challenges.
He had earlier served as Director of MHRD's Continuing Education Programme. He is the Founder President of Foundation for Educational Excellence and Engineering Design and Analysis Forum to cater to the needs of research aspirants for capacity building in academic research.