Gaya betel shopowner’s son makes his mark in US submarine design contest

Four years back when Anshuman, son of a betel shopowner Sunil Kumar cracked IIT, the newspapers sketched his struggle - how he vaulted from a humble background to make it big.

Four years after the big news, Anshuman has again become talk of town.

Anshuman, now a final year BTech student of IIT-Mumbai, has bagged second position in the submarine design contest ‘Robo Sub’, organised recently at Santiago city of the United States. The competition was attended by representatives of 11 countries, including the USA, Canada, China, Japan and Russia.

Anshuman, who led a team of seven engineers, astonished the world with the latest prototype submarine design.

Anshuman and his team were given the task at the competition to assemble an automatic submarine that was to be left in an open oceanic atmosphere. The submarine prototype was then required to identify the colour and touch the balloons. Out of the 11 countries, IIT-Mumbai’s model named ‘Matasya’ stood second.

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Sunil Kumar, who barely knows the nitty gritty of his son Anshuman’s achievement, is elated seeing the brouhaha round his house. A low-profile man Sunil said, “Despite the fact that my financial condition is not so good, I have never turned deaf ears to the demands of my three sons and made them engineers. Anshuman is the second while his elder and youngest brothers are also engineers.”

He said, “When my son Anshuman informed me about his achievement in America, the entire Ganga Mahal, the residential society where we live, burst into joy and my wife organised a small puja.” He admitted that he did not know much about the achievement of his son. “My neighbours and relatives term it as a big thing,” he said.

Talking to Hindustan Times from Mumbai, Anshuman said, “I am very happy with our scores at ‘Robo Sub’. I dream to make my country self-reliant in technology. The type of automatic submarine designed by us at IIT would help Indian Navy in many ways. It can reach places where humans cannot tread. It can be used as a multi-purpose automatic submarine designed to compete with other war equipment under the water.”

Anshuman gave credit to his parents, brothers and school teachers for his achievement.

Anshuman did his schooling from Gaya. After matriculating from Gaya DAV and doing plus two from Creane Memorial School, he cracked JEE and got admission in IIT-Mumbai.

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