PAU Engineer Dr Samanpreet Ahuja Gets Jawaharlal Nehru Award

Ludhiana, July 21, 2015: Dr Samanpreet Ahuja, Assistant Research Engineer (Soil and Water Engineering), Punjab Agricultural University (PAU) has won the prestigious “Jawaharlal Nehru Award” of the Indian Council of Agricultural Research (ICAR), for her outstanding doctoral thesis research on natural resource management. The award carries a certificate, citation, gold medal and a cash prize of Rs 50,000/-. The award will be bestowed upon Dr Ahuja during the 87th Foundation Day celebrations of ICAR, scheduled to be held in Patna on July 25, 2015. The topic of her research was "Modelling the Impact of Climate Change on Groundwater Resources in Central Punjab." The study was conducted under the guidance of Dr K.G. Singh and Dr PPS Lubana, experts of soil and water engineering. Dr Ahuja has developed a methodology for assessing the impact of climate change on crop yield and water in agriculture by interlinking climate, soil-water-vegetation and groundwater models. The methodology is also valuable to assess cross-sectoral impact of climate change and formulate adaptation technologies for enhancing water productivity; sustenance of crop yield and water resources.

Dr B. S. Dhillon, Vice-Chancellor, PAU, congratulated Dr Ahuja for bagging the prestigious national award for her outstanding Ph.D research.

Lauding Dr Ahuja for the distinction, Dr Neelam Grewal, Dean, Postgraduate Studies, highlighted that this was the 17th Jawaharlal Nehru Award won by PAU for outstanding research carried out by Ph.D students. She hoped that the students’ research at PAU will be honoured with prestigious awards in future too.

Dr Jaskaran Singh Mahal, Dean, College of Agricultural Engineering and Technology, while congratulating Dr Ahuja, said “Dedication with clear idea always receives appreciation.”

Dr Rajan Aggarwal, Senior Research Engineer-cum-Head, Department of Soil and Water Engineering, congratulated Dr Ahuja for her consistent efforts and hard work.