Ajudhiya Nath Khosla (1892–1984) was an Indian engineer, academic and politician. He is remembered primarily for his contributions to irrigation and river-valley engineering in India and for his later public roles, which included service as Governor of Odisha and as a Member of Parliament.
| Name | Ajudhiya Nath Khosla |
|---|---|
| Born | 1892 |
| Died | 1984 |
| Nationality | Indian |
| Profession | Civil engineer, academic, politician |
| Notable roles | Chairman, Central Waterways, Irrigation and Navigation Commission; Vice-Chancellor, University of Roorkee; Governor of Odisha; Member of Parliament |
Khosla trained as a civil engineer and built his early career in the irrigation services of pre-independence India. He worked extensively on problems of canal design, seepage, and the behaviour of hydraulic structures founded on permeable soils. His analytical work on the design of weirs and barrages, often grouped under the rubric of "Khosla's theory" of subsurface flow, became standard reference material for engineers working on alluvial rivers in the Indian subcontinent.
Khosla's professional reputation rests on his contributions to the design of major irrigation works in northern India and to the institutional development of water-resources planning. He was associated with the Central Waterways, Irrigation and Navigation Commission (the predecessor of the Central Water Commission), where he played a leading role in the formulation of multipurpose river-valley projects in the years immediately after independence.
Khosla served as Vice-Chancellor of the University of Roorkee (now the Indian Institute of Technology Roorkee), one of the oldest engineering institutions in Asia. In this capacity he was associated with the modernisation of engineering education in India and the strengthening of postgraduate research in civil and hydraulic engineering.
After his engineering and academic career, Khosla entered public life. He served as Governor of Odisha and was also a Member of Parliament, representing engineering and technical expertise in legislative deliberations on national development. He was associated with several government committees on irrigation, power and river-valley development.
Khosla represents a generation of Indian technocrats who moved between engineering practice, academic leadership and public office. His engineering contributions influenced the design methodology of hydraulic structures on alluvial foundations, while his administrative roles helped shape the early institutional framework for water-resources development and engineering education in independent India.