Governor K. Sankaranarayanan felicitates an engineer at Mecon community hall in Ranchi on Tuesday. Picture by Hardeep Singh

Ranchi, Sept. 15: On Engineer’s Day, Governor K. Sankaranarayanan gave a gift to the state and to aspiring techies. He declared that a Jharkhand Engineering Academy would soon be set up here as a model training centre for engineers much on the lines of The Engineering Academy (TEA), Hyderabad.

The announcement was made at a seminar organised by the Jharkhand Engineers Association at Mecon community hall on the occasion of 148th birth anniversary of legendary engineer M. Vishweshwaraya. The governor also said that five engineers of the state would be honoured with the Vishweshwaraya award next year.

Engineers of the state are equally qualified like their counterparts in other states but most of our men neither evaluate nor review projects that are executed, the governor said. He added that to be eligible for the award, engineers need to be aware of the principles of planning and execution of Vishweshwaraya.

Meanwhile, national chairman of mechanical engineering division board of Jharkhand centre of the Institute of Engineers (India) Rana S. Chakravorty today warned that if global warming was not checked it would create havoc.

The Himalayan glaciers will melt down, low-lying areas will be inundated that will displace inhabitants and damage crop prospects and add to that there may not be a winter season, he said at a presentation on climate change at Engineers’ Bhavan this evening.

The Jharkhand centre of Institute of Engineers (India) organised the discussion on Engineers’ Day.

During the presentation, Chakravorty elaborated that the temperature can rise by 6 degrees by the end of the current century. “Once the glaciers melt due to global warming, the mean sea level can go up by a maximum of 88 cm at certain places. This, in turn may cause inundation of low-lying areas. In India alone, 7 million people will be displaced and crop production in these areas will be lost totally,” he said. Aquatic life would also not remain the same, he warned, adding that there would be bleaching of coral reefs and shells.

Chakravorty urged the people to rise to the demand of the day and strongly advocated afforestation on a “planned and wise manner” that may help tackle the impending crisis to a great extent.

HEC chairman-cum-managing director G.K. Pillai and N.K. Jha, the executive director of RDCIS-SAIL, also spoke on the occasion.