With concepts such as “smart cities” making the rounds, civil engineers face many challenges that demand solutions, said S.K.Bhattacharyya, Director, CSIR-Central Building Research Institute (CBRI), Roorkee, here on Thursday.
Inaugurating Moments’ 15, a national-level civil engineering symposium organised by the Department of Civil Engineering, National Institute of Technology (NIT), Mr.Bhattacharyya said that time has come to break departmental barriers. Civil engineering students cannot confine themselves to their subject, but have to learn electronics and other subjects. Civionics is a new subject they have to acquaint themselves with for dealing with concepts such as smart cities. “Smart cities should have smart environment, smart governance, and smart economy. These are all challenges before the civil engineers which they have to answer,” Mr.Bhattacharyya said.
CSIR-CBRI has started a two-year postgraduate research programme on “Engineering of Infrastructure and Disaster Mitigation (Buildings and Roads)” under the Academy of Scientific and Innovative Research (AcSIR) in 2010 to impart training to civil engineering professionals. He also said that CBRI is involved in finding alternative building materials to conventional ones. Milind R.Kulkarni, Scientist F, Department of Science and Technology, elaborated on various courses and scholarships available for civil engineers. He advised the students to utilise the Innovation in Science Pursuit for Inspired Research (INSPIRE) scholarship given by Central government for encouraging young scientists for pursuing post-graduation and research. R.Jayasankar, president, Civil Engineering Association (CEA), said the civil department has achieved 93 per cent placement this year. B.Venkatramani, Dean, (Research and Consultancy), NIT, K.Muthukumaran, Staff Adviser, Civil Engineering Association (CEA), M.Durai Raj, overall coordinator, and S.Girish, chairman, CEA, spoke.
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