Soon, engineers will have to register with a body to be able to practise their trade. A Bill to that effect is taking shape under the aegis of the All India Council of Technical Education (AICTE) and the Ministry of Human Resource Development.
The first draft of the Bill has been submitted to the Ministry, which has recommended changes. It has been suggested having a council to register engineers on the lines of those that exist for lawyers, doctors and pharmacists. The Bill has been drafted by a committee constituted by the AICTE.
The committee comprises Sandeep Sancheti, Vice-Chancellor of SRM Institute of Technology, Chennai; M.S. Ananth, former director of the Indian Institute of Technology - Madras; and J. Chandrasekhar, chairperson of Aerospace, School of Engineering, Amrita Vishwa Vidyapeetham, Coimbatore. Mr. Ananth is the chairman of the committee.
The suggestion for a Bill came from E. Sreedharan, architect of the Delhi Metro Rail, who mooted a code of ethics and a council.
AICTE chairman Anil D. Sahasrabuddhe told The Hindu that the committee had handed over its recommendations. “Right now, it is in the discussion stage. Some changes are required. It will take some time,” he said.
“The basic idea is like lawyers, architects, pharmacists and medical practitioners, engineers should get registered and there must be professional ethics and code which they all have to follow. If they don’t follow, their registration can get cancelled.”
