Engineer Behind 100-Plus Bridges, Ujjain’s Shobha Khanna Gets Lifetime Honour

Ujjain (Madhya Pradesh): Retired superintending engineer Shobha Khanna has been honoured with the ICI-UltraTech ‘Lifetime Engineer 2026’ Award at the annual Concrete Day held in Indore.

Khanna is credited with overseeing the construction of more than 100 bridges. During the 2016 Ujjain Simhastha, 16 important bridges were built under her leadership, for which she received the ‘Simhastha Seva Medal 2016’ from the then Chief Minister.

Her earlier honours include ICI-UltraTech Best Concrete Structure Awards for bridges built in 2013-14 and 2014-15, the Madhya Pradesh Concrete Technologist Award in 2021, Construction Woman Empowerment Award 2023 and ‘Nari Vikram Alankaran’ in 2025.

After retiring from the PWD, Khanna served as GM (Civil) for the Bhopal and Indore Metro Rail projects for more than two years. She later worked as a National Quality Monitor for the National Rural Road Infrastructure Development Agency and is also serving as a bridge expert and state quality monitor for the Madhya Pradesh Rural Road Development Authority.

Khanna completed her BE in civil engineering in 1978 and ME in structural engineering in 1987. She has also been elected a council member of the Indian Roads Congress for the past 19 years.