CHENNAI: President Ram Nath Kovind today said engineers can play a much larger role in solving key challenges facing the country including issues related to food and environment.
Kovind said evolution of technology was changing the way how people live, work and think.
The president urged engineers to draw inspiration from former president A P J Abdul Kalam who, he said, "trained as an engineer and became famous as a missile technologist." "Engineers can play a much larger role in solving key challenges facing our country-- in food, health care and environment and in providing low cost east to build housing," Kovind said.
The president was participating in the valedictory session of the 32nd Indian Engineering Congress, organised by The Institution of Engineers.
"We will still need machines, tools and power grids, roads and bridges, aircraft and ships. But this traditional practice of engineering will have to both embrace and drive innovation in cutting-edge areas." Terming that the civil engineers were "specialists" in materials, he said, they use this knowledge for construction.
The same knowledge of composites and materials will increasingly be deployed for both micro needs such as creating medical implants for the human body as well as micro needs.
About his visit to the state, he said, it was his first visit to Tamil Nadu since being elected as the President of India.
"It is appropriate that it has coincided with the valedictory function of the 32nd Indian Engineering Congress," Kovind said.
"This is a land of engineers as well as social engineers who have contributed to our country," he said.
Referring to his visit to former president A P J Abdul Kalam's memorial at Pei Karumbu in Rameswaram earlier in the day, Kovind said along with the late R Venkataraman, Dr Kalam was one of two former presidents who were his "illustrious predecessors", to have come from Tamil Nadu.
"Kalam trained as an engineer and became famous as a 'missile technologist," he said.
"He was a proud son of India. He could have earned millions in the West, but he chose to devote his learning and his life to the development of our country," the president said.
"All of us as Indians, and all of you as engineers, must draw inspiration from him," Kovind said.
The president also praised Tamil Nadu saying the state has made impressive strides in social reforms right from the days of Rajaji and Periyar.
"The journey of reforms and of people's welfare continued under C Annadurai, K Kamaraj and M G Ramachandran, whose birth centenary we are celebrating this year." "Dr J Jayalalithaa took Tamil Nadu even further. And I cannot forget to mention that gifted wordsmith and patriarch of our politics M Karunanidhi," the president said.
The mid-day meal scheme that originated in Tamil Nadu gave India a model to combat malnutrition and help in the physical and cognitive development of children, he said.
Tamil Nadu used engineering to build a solid industrial economy - creating thousands of jobs, the president added.