Candidate engineer ready to do his bit to improve lives
Yajvin Rajcoomar (27) from Durban in KwaZulu-Natal is a candidate engineer at the Department of Water and Sanitation (DWS) where he is gaining the expertise needed to one day help South Africa come up with innovative solutions to its water challenges.
Several engineering fields were added to the scarce skills list that was gazetted in February.
Given the importance of engineering to the DWA’s core business, it runs a bursary programme to help address the shortage of skills in the water and sanitation sector. Rajcoomar is one of the promising youngsters to receive a bursary from the department’s Learning Academy.
He says he has a passion for water engineering, with a focus on hydraulic structures – which means the DWS is the perfect fit for him.
The water-engineering field mainly focuses on the continuous development, maintenance and risk management associated with water infrastructure. Potential risks include the injury and loss of life due to infrastructure failure, damage to the environment and the overall impact of water infrastructure on the country’s economic growth.
Rajcoomar’s journey
He obtained a BSc Civil Engineering degree from the University of KwaZuluNatal three years ago and immediately went to work for the DWA as a candidate engineer in the department’s four-year graduate programme, he says.
Rajcoomar says he was fortunate enough to work in two different chief directorates of the department. During his time at the Infrastructure Development Directorate, his duties mainly consisted of the management of large capital projects, such as dams, pipelines, and canals. He is currently based in the Engineering Services Directorate, where his duties include providing technical support for the design, implementation and quality assurance of hydraulic structures and open channel conveyance systems.
Rajcoomar was honoured to be part of the engineering team responsible for assessing damage to infrastructure after the recent floods in KwaZulu-Natal.
“I was tasked with compiling high-level conditional assessments for damaged infrastructure in local district municipalities,” says Rajcoomar.
As a young South African, Rajcoomar feels extremely honoured to be part of the DWS where he is able to provide valuable contributions to improving the lives of citizens across the country. “Knowing that daily your work affects millions of South Africans drives me to work harder and provides me with a sense of fulfilment and job satisfaction.”