An IPA Delegation, lead by Mr. Sudhakaran Nair, Mr. B S A Narayan and Mr. Chandra Shekhar Gupta visited Pune on 18th June, 2009.

During this visit, the Delegation had a long and fruitful meeting with Dr. Anil Sahasrabudhe, Director – College of Engineering – Pune (CoEP). Mr. Nair briefed him about various initiatives of IPA with IAPMO, related to Plumbing Codes and Plumbing Education. Mr. Nair also expressed gratitude to CoEP for agreeing to allot 500 sq ft of additional space for Plumbing Laboratory. He also briefed Dr. Sahasrabudhe about the progress achieved so far, by signing Memorandum of Understanding with various educational institutions in various parts of the country. At the same time, Dr. Sahasrabudhe also expressed his satisfaction on the fact that the one of its kind Plumbing Laboratory, chose to have CoEP campus as its home. In fact, he admitted that this Laboratory has become a matter of pride for CoEP and every visitor to CoEP invariably visits the Lab, to understand as to ‘how to do plumbing’ and ‘how not to do plumbing!’ He also suggested that with a view to give information to the visitors at the touch of a finger, a few Touch Screen Kiosks should be installed in the Lab. He, as a follow-up suggested Mr. Subhash Deshpande and Mr. Vivek Khandekar to provide basic data, so that it can be used for the purpose. He also showed his willingness to participate at the 13th Indian Plumbing Conference, scheduled to be held at Hyderabad between 28-29 August, 2009. Dr Sahasrabudhe added that this will provide him an opportunity to interact with national and international experts from the field of plumbing.

This visit was followed by a meeting with the Office Bearers of IPA Pune Chapter (IPA PC). This was attended by Mr. Dinesh Shah, Mr. Mahesh Limaye and Mr.Milind Chaphekar, besides Mr. Khandekar, Mr Deshpande and Mr Pravin Bora. The IPAPC Chairman, Mr. Vivek Khandekar welcomed all the guests and briefed them about the chapter activity. He briefed them about the future plans of activity at local level and also at adjoining centres like Kolhapur, Nashik, etc.

Mr. Pravin Bora, Vice-President of IPAPC, subsequently initiated a dialogue on Plumbing Laboratory, concerning administrative issues and also future plans for expansion of the Lab, with allotment of additional space by CoEP. Mr. Nair suggested that this space should be utilized for expanding the Poster Gallery, so that it can create additional means of revenue for the Lab. He also suggested to install Profile Section of faucets, valves, etc. so that it helps in clearing the fundamentals of students.

Mr. Nair also advised Mr. Khandekar, Mr. Bora and Mr. Phansalkar to initiate necessary actions to acquire the additional space from CoEP and start working on the expansion plan.

This was followed by yet another function – the 50th Marriage Anniversary of the Godfather of Indian plumbing – Mr. S G Deolalikar, or simply SGD. It was a nice evening where SGD had invited a small number of people. From IPA, there were, besides Mr. Nair, Mr. Narayan, Mr. Gupta, Mr. Khokhani, Mr. Khandekar, Mr. John Joseph and Mr. Adhar Mirchandani. This function was organized by SGD’s son Deepak and daughter Jyoti, who stay in USA and had come especially to celebrate this occasion in India.

While talking to the gathering, Mr. Nair said that for the entire plumbing fraternity of India, SGD is like a father figure. He further added that he has come to Pune as a representative of Indian plumbing fraternity to wish a happy and prosperous life to Sudha and Shriganesh Deolalikar.

SGD was touched by these sentiments and expressed his gratitude by simply saying – “I am a contended man with such a large and nation-wide family!”