Kanuri Lakshmana Rao

 

Dr.K.L.Rao
Personal details
Born	July 15, 1902 Kankipadu, Andhra Pradesh
Died	May 18, 1986
Religion	Hinduism

Dr. Kanuri Lakshmana Rao (Telugu: కానూరి లక్ష్మణరావు) B.E., Ph.D. (born 15 July 1902 - died 18 May 1986) is an Indian engineer and a Padma Bhushan awardee.

Honours

In 1963, Rao was awarded "Padma Bhushan" by the president of India for his contribution in the areas of irrigation and power. He worked as president of Irrigation and Central board in the year 1960. He also worked as the president of All India Engineers Association in 1958-59 & 1959-1960. He was awarded doctorate in science by Andhra University in 1960. He was also awarded doctorate by the Roorkee University in engineering in the year 1968.

Personal life and education

Rao was born in a middle class Brahmin family in Kankipadu, Krishna district, Andhra Pradesh. His father was a village attorney. He lost his father when he was 9 years old. He lost vision in one eye due to injury during childhood days while playing at school. He studied Intermediate (+2) at Presidency College, Madras. He took his B.E. degree from Madras University and he was the first student from Madras University to obtain a Master's Degree in engineering. Later he took his Ph.D. in 1939 from the University of Birmingham in the United Kingdom.

Engineering career

He worked as a Professor in Rangoon and Burma. After completing PHD he worked as Assistant Professor in the United Kingdom. He wrote a book called Structural Engineering and Reinforced Concrete. After returning to India, he worked as a design engineer for the Madras government. He held the post of Director (Designs) in Vidyut Commission-New Delhi in the year 1950. He was promoted as chief engineer in the year 1954.

He is Father of India's Water Management and Agriculture. Because of Him only crores of Indians are getting food and formers are surviving. He wrote autobiography"The cusecs candidate"

Political career

He was elected as a member of parliament from Vijayawada constituency for the first time in 1961. He was elected as member of parliament three times from the Vijayawada constituency. On 20 July, 1963, Rao was sworn in as a minister for Irrigation and Electricity in the union government. Under his regime as union minister for water resources, Rao designed many irrigation and hydro-electric projects. The world's longest earth dam on River Krishna in Nalgonda District, Andhra Pradesh is to his credit. Rao worked as union minister in Jawahar Lal Nehru, Lal Bahadur Sastry and Indira Gandhi's cabinet.

See also

In the year 2006, the Pulichintala project, at Bellamkonda of Guntur district, has been named as K. L. Rao Sagar project, the icon of the irrigation engineering fraternity in the country. This decision was announced by Chief Minister Y. S. Rajasekhara Reddy at a meeting with senior officials here on 20 February, 2006. He also met a cross-section of people and political leaders earlier in the day when he observed that the Pulichintala Project, which was contemplated in 1903 and for which foundation stones were laid in 1961 and 1988, was now fructifying as envisaged by Rao. He was the first one to do a complete survey and make proposal to link National Rivers in India but that could not be implemented.

According to Dr. Kalyanaraman who started working on this project again in 2003 stated two reasons why the proposal made years ago by the late K.L. Rao to link the Ganga with the Cauvery failed to click was that there was no satisfactory answer to a question whether the Ganga had any surplus water to spare and secondly, the prohibitive cost of lifting water across the Vindhyas.

The Ganga could be augmented by linking it up with the Brahmaputra, the potentials of which had not been fully exploited, and arrangements could be made to negotiate the Vindhyas by laying canals up to the Farakka Barrage and moving downwards via Suvarnarekha up to Mahanadi and downwards.

References

• lok Sabha
• Outstanding Engineers
• Past Presidents of Institute of Engineers
• Padma bhushan awardees
• `River linking project is pragmatic' at The Hindu Wednesday, Apr 16, 2003

Persondata
Name	Rao, K. L.
Alternative names
Short description
Date of birth	July 15, 1902
Place of birth	Kankipadu, Andhra Pradesh
Date of death	May 18, 1986
Place of death