NITC student wins awards for best thesis for her work on Nagpur city

Sakshi Katekhaye wins NIUA-NMCG Best Thesis Award for 'Re-imagining Urban Rivers' at NIT-C, focusing on Nagpur city's water assets.

Sakshi Katekhaye, an M. Plan graduate (2022-24) from the Department of Architecture and Planning, National Institute of Technology, Calicut (NIT-C) has won the NIUA-NMCG (National Institute for Urban Affairs- National Mission for Clean Ganga) Best Thesis Award in the postgraduate category for the year 2024.

The year’s theme focused on ‘Re-imagining Urban Rivers’. Sakshi’s research focused on Nagpur city and its Nag and Pioli rivers and lakes in her work titled ‘Enhancing Resilience and Imageability of Urban Areas through their Lake and River Assets – A Case of Nagpur’. She received the prize from Rajeev Kumar Mittal, Director General, National Mission for Clean Ganga (NMCG), Ministry of Jal Shakti, and Debolina Kundu, Director, National Institute of Urban Affairs (NIUA), Ministry of Housing and Urban Affairs, in the presence of Rajiv Ranjan, Chief Advisor, NIUA.

Sakshi’s thesis was shortlisted in the top 10 list of PG theses. It was examined at various stages by subject experts and mentored by inputs from the NIUA-NMCG panel. This is a rare achievement for the NIT-C, which had secured the prize twice in the last three years. The work was completed under the supervision of Sanil Kumar from the Department of Architecture and Planning, NIT-C. She was mentored by Vaishnavi T.G. Shankar from NIUA. Students of IIT Rookee and School of Planning and Architecture, Vijayawada, won the second and third prizes respectively.