Curling & Geomatics - The Best of Both Worlds

Mr. V. Govindaraj is a reputed alumnus of PSG College of Technology. Currently he is a geomatic engineer in Cairn India Ltd. It’s an oil and gas exploration company that has its headquarters in Gurgaon, India. Cairn, along with its JV partners, accounts for more than a fifth of India’s domestic crude oil production. He did his diploma in Mechanical Engineering (DME), completing it in the year 1987.

He got placed in TCS on completion of his diploma. He joined the Saudi Engineering Group International (SEGI) in the year 1997 and worked there till 2001. In the year 2001, he joined the company Cairn Ltd. that he currently works in. The enthusiastic engineer doesn’t lead a boring life as most engineers do these days. He actively participates in various sports events.

He participated in the Airtel Marathon, completing the run in 27 minutes. He likes athletics, football and is an active member in a winter sport called Curling. Along with a group of members, he decided to popularize a game that isn’t widely known in India. After a lot of discussion on various games such as kho-kho and a few games played in rural areas, they settled on the game curling.

Curling is a sport played on ice sheets. The players slides the stone from the left corner of the ice sheet towards the target circle that is segmented into 4 concentric circles in the right corner, which is called house. The centre point of the house gives the highest point. The closer to the centre gives more points. The game is played with 4 members in each team. Eight stones are given to each team. The team with the highest points is declared the winner of the game.

He participated in the game curling at the Winter Olympic Games in Austria first winning over 70 championships and 100 certificates in his sports career so far. He is the first curler in India. Other countries were surprised by an Indian excelling in a winter sport as our country is situated in the tropics. He was sponsored by Cairn India Ltd. which has been a great support to him. An article was written about his victory in Oberösterreichische Nachrichten, an Austrian newspaper with the Indian flag appearing first for the first time.

He stands to testify that success comes gradually. When he entered the games, he was disqualified in his first game. He participated again with determination and got selected to play in the South Asian Games. He was honored by the Indian Hockey gold medalist  Baskar, for his victory in the South Asian Games. He is now trying his best to make curling an official game in India and expects to participate in the next South Asian Games that is to be conducted in Pyeongchang, South Korean in the year 2018. He expects a lot of youngsters to actively take part in the game curling. This is when he gave a scientific project that can be looked into, a method to maintain the ice sheets and to keep the temperature stable in our tropical country India.

The GPS that is used for the process of locating the oil and gas belongs to USA. India’s Indian Regional Navigation Satellite System (IRNSS), is said to be completely set by the middle of 2015. The IRNSS cannot be used for the exploration of oil and gas as it is not accurate as the GPS. The technology still lags behind. The identification of the substance is still hard. The material is located by the GPS but the nature is unknown, it’s luck, he says.

Geomatics is, in fact, a field that is growing fast. There are a wide job opportunities available in the field of geomatics, design, development and operation of systems for mapping information about land, the ocean, our natural resources and manmade features. Becoming a geomatic engineer is not only safe for any gender but also gives a high class lifestyle. Though the starting salary is not high, the pay increases in a few months which paves way to live your dream life. To be a geomatic engineer, one has to be really skilled in many areas such as computers, data structures, image processing, measurement and one also needs a lot of patience and concentration.

The option of geomatics was open to him. He opted it to have an exciting life. He has enjoyed being a geomatic engineer right from the point he joined work and to this point he enjoys it. The fast growing field expects the youth of today to take the career as an important one as it is a field that not only gives you a life but also gives a brighter future for India.