Agartala, Nov 8 (TIWN): The engineers will have crucial role to play and the engineers should focus on practical solutions, said the chief guest Padma Vibhusan Professor- MM Sharma, ICT, Mumbai Saturday in the 7th convocation programme of National Institute of Technology (NIT) of Agartala.

Payel Saha, a Post-graduate student, Department of Transportation Engineering topped the institute and secured gold medal while Rishu Raj, an under-graduate student, Department of Electrical Engineering (UG) bagged the top place and received gold medal.

A total of four Ph.D scholars, 118 M.Tech students, 13 MBA students, 15 M.Sc students, 16 MCA students and 500 B.Tech students received their medal and degree certificates in the convocation programme of NIT.

While delivering the convocation address, Sharma said education in engineering is very rigorous and allows orchestration of disparate subjects. We need to create a large number of jobs for which we badly need to have a GDP growth of atleast 8 per cent, if not 10 pc. He further asserted, in this context that manufacturing would play an important role and women engineers can play a vital role.

“We have to ensure quality water for drinking and make sure water is used intelligently in farming and water recycling is carried out. We need to ensure power supply to every home and we need imaginative solutions which would combine solar, agro-waste based power, wind power and quality storage batteries by utilizing sound engineering principles”, said Sharma.  

He further said, “The engineers can contribute to cope up with the global and local challenges- energy, water and food supply. Tripura is blessed with substantial reserves of natural gas. NIT-A should work closely with ONGC and OIL to valorize these resources in a stranded area apart from generating power and may be a fertilizer plant.”

Besides, Sharma advised to develop technologies to get valuable items like lithium from used mobile phones and batteries and to buttress the UG labs with some new experiments every year. Prof. MM Sharma congratulated all the students who got different degrees today from the portals of National Institute of Technology. He urged to all the students to remember their alma mater and to extend their supports in various ways.

Director and Chairman of BOG, NIT Agartala- Prof. Gopal Mugeraya presided over the convocation function while members of BOG, members of senate, faculties, staffs and students of NIT attended the convocation programme in Visvesvaraya Auditorium at NIT campus.