BENGALURU: ISRO scientist and project director of Chandrayaan-3 P Veeramuthuvel (46) has requested the Tamil Nadu government to donate the Rs 25-lakh cash award given to him to the four educational institutes where he studied. In October, the TN government felicitated nine “remarkable space scientists from Tamil Nadu’’, including Veeramuthuvel, and announced an award of Rs 25 lakh to each of them in recognition of their contribution to space research.
Speaking to TNSE, Veeramuthuvel said Chandrayaan-3 belonged to the country. “It is not my personal project or achievement. It is a teamwork. Hence, I felt that accepting a cash award for the Moon mission would be unethical. I’ve come from a humble background and I know the difficulties of an economically weak student. I felt the award money should be given for a good cause and help deserving students from humble backgrounds to study and achieve their aspirations,” the space scientist said.
Veeramuthuvel said he thought of distributing the award money to the team members of Chandrayaan-3. “It is more about the team than one person. But it would have been a difficult task, so I requested the TN government to distribute it equally among the educational institutions where I studied.”
‘Dream was to join Isro, serve country’
“I am here today because of them. Unfortunately, my first school -- Railway Mixed High School at Villupuram -- is closed now,” said the scientist, who is the son of a railway technician. Asked if he could have kept part of the award money for his personal needs, including towards home loan and his daughter’s education, he said that his salary is enough for him and his family.
“It was my dream to join Isro and I am here to serve my country. Similarly, my daughter will also study and come up in life,” he added. Earlier this month, Sandhya Venugopal Sharma, Additional Secretary, Department of Space, Bengaluru, wrote to A Karthik, Principal Secretary, Higher Education Department, TN, stating that Veeramuthuvel wants the award money to be equally distributed among the educational institutions where he studied.
The institutions are Elumalai Polytechnic College, Villupuram; Sri Sairam Engineering College, Chennai; National Institute of Technology (NIT), Tiruchirappalli; and Indian Institute of Technology (ITT), Madras.