We deeply mourn the death of Dr. Sankar Sen, ex-Professor and Head of the Dept. of Electrical Engineering of erstwhile B.E. College. Dr. Sen passed away on 08.02.2020 at 7.30 p.m. in Kolkata. He was a renowned academician well known for his profound knowledge in Electrical Engineering to all the engineers of this region in general and to his students and colleagues in particular. He was an alumnus of 1948 batch from erstwhile B.E. College and he obtained his doctoral degree from Imperial College, London. He joined B.E. College as a teacher in the year 1956 and made immense and invaluable contributions to the development of the Electrical Engineering Department and the Computer Science and Technology Department of erstwhile B.E. College.
He joined Jadavpur University as the Vice-Chancellor in 1986. Later Prof. Sen won the State Assembly polls from the Dum Dum constituency as a CPI-M candidate in 1991 and 1996. He was made the power minister in the fourth Left Font government of chief minister Jyoti Basu, at a time the government was finding it difficult to grapple with the problem of power shortage.
He carried out important reforms in the sector, set up new power plants and modernised the distribution network during his eight-year ministerial stint to convert Bengal into a power surplus state before quitting the ministry in 1999.
His legacy will continue to live on for quite a long time in the hearts and minds of his students, his colleagues and everybody he interacted with. We pay the deepest respect to this academic stalwart. May his soul rest in peace.
His obituary in Anandabazar Patrika dated 9th February, 2020.
https://www.anandabazar.com/state/former-bengal-minister-shankar-sen-passed-away-1.1106661
