Brahmapur native Kota Harinarayan, soft-spoken aircraft giant and one of the renowned aeronautical scientists, became extremely delighted following the induction of India’s first home-grown fighter Jet Tejas into the Indian Air Force last week.
The chief architect of this historic indigenous fighter jet Dr Harinarayan completed his graduation from BHU and Post-Graduation from IISc from Bangaluru. He started his career at HAl in 1967 and thereafter moved to DRDO headquarters in 1970 where he held several key positions till 1982. He rejoined HAl in 1982 as Chief Designer in its Nasik Division and thereafter, assumed the charge of Director of ADE in 1985 in Bengaluru. By virtue of his merit and technical competence, he was elevated as Distinguished Scientist of DRDO in 1995 and as Program Director and Chief Designer of lCA.
He successfully directed the project leading to flight testing and clearance for limited series production. Not as a technocrat, but also as an educationist, Harinarayan proven his worth and was honored with various awards for his relentless contribution in the field of aeronautical engineering and a host of allied domains. He was a fellow of ASI and Indian National Academy of Engineering. He was also awarded National Aeronautic Prize and FIE Foundation Award in 1996 for his excellent contribution in the field. Notably, he was the recipient of three national prestigious awards, namely, SBI-Pragna Puraskar Award, Dr YN Memorial Award and DRDO Technology leadership Award, all in 2001 followed by Padmashree award in 2002 that brought a significant change in his endeavor and motivated further. Significantly, he was the former Vice-Chancellor of University of Hyderabad where he substantially shared his technical know-how to the stakeholders during his tenure.
With the induction of this new indigenous fighter jet ‘Tejas’ the denizens of silk city have a reason to cheer and became proud of the son of the soil. Though he settled in Bangaluru, but often visits his home town Brahmapur where he received his education up to intermediate and belonged to lower middle class family. Mathematics was his most favored subjects, he said. He changed his mind and developed an insatiable desire to know about air craft’s only in 1965 when he was offered a post graduate seat in Aeronautical Engineering without interview, he said.
Notably, around 20 educational institutions like IITs-Kanpur, Bombay, Kharagpur and 40 Rand D laboratories and more than 500 engineers grinded for more than three decades to develop this indigenous air craft. While only a few components of the jet were imported, most parts are made in India which made the jet unique.