Project Examination: Project examination is an important component of all professional courses. It provides an opportunity to the students for an integrated application of all their acquired knowledge and skills for the handling of real life problems on the shop floor or on the field. Final year students of Civil Engineering School Allahabad were rather excited about their project examination, as it was going to be their last working assignment in the institution. The external examiner for the project was a superintending engineer of Allahabad Circle of U.P. P.W.D. buildings and roads branch. He suggested that he will like to involve the students in the preparation of an ongoing project, for the survey, design, drawing and detailing of a road stretching for eleven kilometers from end to end. The fieldwork was likely to take about a week and the students were expected to stay in a camp at a convenient location during the period. Thereafter, the drawing, design and detailing could be done by the students in the institution at Allahabad. The superintending engineer promised all possible facilities and full support and guidance from the PWD staff during field surveys and subsequently, during, drawing design and detailing in the institution.
The fieldwork involved running over the full eleven kilometer length of the road with a planetable for plotting the details of all features lying on both sides of the road, alongwith marking of the spot levels with the help of tangent clinometers. Thereafter, the proposed alignment of the road was to be marked and leveling was to be done for the preparation of longitudinal section and cross-sections of the proposed road. Rivers and drainages crossing the road were to be marked and the location of proposed culverts and bridges was to be highlighted alongwith their catchment areas.
A mini-city of tents: A convenient location of the campsite was marked about ten kilometres from Allahabad, where a wide stretch of open land was available close to the middle of the proposed road. Almost 100 to 120 tents were needed for providing living accommodation to the students, teaching staff and attendants and for club activities and upkeep of survey instruments and essential stores and for running the mess and kitchen. The land was cleared and a mini-city of tents sprang up there in the first week of June 1957. The layout was in the form of a quadrangle, with the tents for teachers forming the front, the tents for students were pitched along the sides and other utilities occupied the rear, leaving sufficient open space in the middle for assembly, campfire and associated community activities. The teaching staff and students started trooping in on the opening day and took time to get adjusted in the make-shift arrangements. All members of the board of governors of the institution reached the campsite late in the evening alongwith a good number of distinguished guests from the town. After usual pleasantaries and formalities the guests freely spread out to have a look at the students living under the canvas and having some words and informal chat with them.
Campfire: Campfires are almost pre-historic and have been in vogue since times immemorial. Campfires provide opportunities to the people for relaxation after the nerve raking work schedule of the day. People rub shoulders with each other, chatting freely and munching goodies. With the ringing of the bell at the camp, the students, the teachers and the guests were on the move towards the central assembly area and settled down all round the campfire, which was slowly picking up. The proceedings commenced with light entertaining programmes and skits by the students. In the meantime, some of the guests warmed up and started narrating their stories and adventures of the good old days leaving the students full of dreams about the unfolding future.
Traffic Census: Traffic census is an important part of the road project. It has to be conducted round the clock for tracking and keeping a count of different types of vehicles moving on the road. The design of the pavement, culverts and bridges is directly linked with the volume, speed and density of traffic and its variation during hours of the day, days of the month and season to season and year to year. Commencing with manual count of passing vehicles on the roads, traffic census can be turned into a very comprehensive exercise with the help of sophisticated automatic tools. For the students of Civil Engineering School Allahabad, traffic census stations were located at salient points on the road to provide to the students some sort of glimpse into the type of traffic, type of wheel loads, intensity and density of traffic and its impact on the design and maintenance features of the road surface and supporting structures. The students worked in shifts at the traffic census stations and were very excited at having got an opportunity for recording their observations round the clock.
Field Work: Three hundred sixty students forming seventy-two survey parties of five students each used to be on their feet in the early hours of the morning. They would check their instruments and the associated kit at the camp site and quickly spread out along the road at the assigned places. For a week, they were on the road from dawn to dusk and could be seen almost everywhere. Traffic kept moving without hindrance during this period, throwing curious looks at the survey parties and wondering all the time about the goings on. Day’s hectic work in the field was normally followed by an hour of reconciliation work with associated parties at the camp and marking out the next day’s work in the field. In the meantime, the dinner bell served as a signal for everybody to get on to his feet for dinner, closely followed by campfire. The energy and exuberance exhibited by the students in the field and during campfire is a tribute to the tremendous spirit and potential of our youth. The rigour and dedicted work for long hours steels the youth and happens to be an essential part of the learning experience of all professionals.
Office work: Design, drawing, detailing and preparation of a project report was expected to be done individually by the students at the institution during regulated working hours. After spending a day or two in sorting out and refining the notes, sketches and survey sheets prepared by the parties during the fieldwork, everybody started working for the completion of the tasks in hand. The students were free to consult each other and the teachers were also available for rendering, whatever help and guidance was needed. The whole emphasis was more on allowing the students substantial opportunities to learn, without the associated stress of project examination. Gradually, it seemed, that, the race was on. The students were getting inspired by the work of the fellow students and as the days rolled on, everybody had clear vision about all that he was expected to do. Three weeks of office work was their last engagement at the institution and they put in all their energy and intensity into it. Superintending Engineer of PWD, who was their examiner made frequent visits to the institution during the period and provided a tremendous boost to their spirits during the nerve-raking summer. The project work was submitted in the last week of June 1957 and the students left for their homes for their last vacation, anxiously waiting for their results.
Placement: The country was running through the second five year plan. There was tremendous emphasis on the development of river valley projects and infra-structure. That had opened up large avenues of employment in U.P as also in the newly integrated states of Rajasthan and Madhya Pradesh. Most of the senior officers handling river valley projects in Rajasthan and Madhya Pradesh were former senior officers of U.P. The results of final year of diploma course in civil engineering of Civil Engineering School Allahabad were declared in the second week of August 1957 and the students started trooping in, at the institution. Fortunately, the institution was in contact with the senior officers of irrigation and other engineering departments of U.P., Rajasthan and Madhya Pradesh and they had notified a large number of vacancies for diploma holders in civil engineering and were keen to accommodate all those students, who were willing to work with them in the field, on their ongoing projects. We talked to each and every student individually, identified his preferences, made sure that he was willing to put in dedicated work in inhospitable conditions in the field and thereafter we sent them to their prospective employers with a letter of introduction, provisional diploma certificate and copy of letter received from the government of India about recognition of the diploma course. Almost, within a month, most of the students of the first batch of diploma course in civil engineering of Civil Engineering School Allahabad were working on prestigious river valley projects of U.P. Rajasthan and Madhya Pradesh.