Civil engineers must nurture spirit of innovation: President

New Delhi, Apr 2: President Ram Nath Kovind on Monday urged officer trainees of the Central Public Works Department and the Central Engineering Service (Roads) to nurture a spirit of innovation and emerge as solution providers in the midst of challenges.  Speaking to separate groups of officer trainees when they called on him, he said their service provides them an enormous platform for serving the nation. All of them would be literally engineering the country’s growth and development.     He said that as future leaders of infrastructure projects, the officer trainees should practice engineering with a social conscience.   ``For instance, they must ensure that the public infrastructure they build – be it offices, residences or roads – was accessible to differently-abled citizens. While formal codes in this regard may exist, projects on the ground need to do more to ensure ease of access.’’   ``This aspect should not be treated as an add-on to an infrastructure project but should become integral to planning and implementation,’’ he said.    Mr Kovind said that as young engineers, they were all aware of the ills of climate change and the benefits of energy efficiency. All of them must ensure that buildings, roads and other infrastructure they create are energy efficient and environment friendly such as Net Zero Energy green buildings being taken up by the CPWD.  If ever the young engineers had any doubt what they can do for the nation and society, they should simply think of stalwart technocrats like M Visvesvaraya and E Sreedharan, he added. UNI