Seventy-year-old Narayana S Bhat has secured the first rank in the state in Civil Engineering Diploma proving that age is just a number. Bhat, a resident of Sirsi city in Uttara Kannada district, attended RN Shetty Polytechnic College to pursue a diploma. Bhat secured 94.88 percent marks to emerge as the topper in civil engineering and 10th in the overall category.

Born in 1953, Bhat secured the second rank in Mechanical Diploma from Government Polytechnic College, Karwar in 1973. He served at several companies in Gujarat and retired from Ballarpur Industries (now Solaris Chemtech Ltd) in 2008. He came to live in Sirsi after retirement and has continued working as a civil contractor there.

Talking to the Indian Express, Bhat said, he had the experience of taking up civil works in Gujarat after the 2001 earthquake, but when he started to construct houses for people, he had to take signatures from authorities which became a big hurdle. Thus, Bhat decided to take up studies to avoid standing in front of anyone to get signatures.

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Bhat decided to enrol for the course when he was 67, and called up his two daughters, one a software engineer in Ireland and the other a scientist in the US, to inform them about his decision to return to college.

According to Bhat, he expected to get around 70 percent marks when he took the first-semester examinations, but he ended up scoring 90.30 percent. Bhat secured 94.88 percent in the last semester to top the class and win the gold medal.

Narayan S Bhat will be felicitated by Chief Minister Basavaraj Bommai and Technical Education minister Ashwath Narayan CN in Bangalore on November 2. Nityanand Kini, the principal of RN Shetty Polytechnic College, told ETV Bharat, “He used to come to college in uniform and had 100 percent attendance. It's a proud moment for all of us.”

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(Edited by : Sudarsanan Mani)