The Indian National Society of Soil Mechanics and Foundation Engineering was established in the year 1948 soon after the second International Conference on Soil Mechanics and Foundation Engineering held at Rotterdam. The Society is affiliated to the International Society in the same year and since then it has strived to fulfil and promote the objectives of the International Society. In December 1970, the name “Indian Geotechnical Society” was adopted. In January 1994 it hosted XIIIth International Conference on Soil Mechanics and Foundation Engineering. The Society celebrated its Diamond Jubilee in the year 2008. The Secretariat of the Society started functioning from its own house from the year 1996, after operating for a number of years from the premises of premier institutions based at Delhi. Indian Geotechnical Society celebrates its 75th Year of existence, in this year 2023 following the footsteps of its illustrious parent body ISSMGE.
OBJECTIVE
The Indian Geotechnical Society (IGS) aims at promoting cooperation amongst engineers and scientists for the advancement and dissemination of knowledge in the fields of Soil Mechanics, Foundation Engineering, Soil Dynamics, Engineering Geology, Rock Mechanics, Snow and Ice Mechanics and allied fields and their practical applications. It provides a common forum for academicians, research workers, designers, construction engineers, equipment manufacturers and others interested in geotechnical activity.
MEMBERSHIP
Participation is encouraged from everyone associated with geotechnical engineering by providing various categories of membership, which is open to individuals, institutions and organizations whose activities or interests are akin with the aims of the Society. An individual may become a Member or a Fellow. Institution Membership is open to Institutions and Associate Membership is open to business concerns. The Society also recognises members who have made significant contribution by conferring “Honorary Fellowship” on them. So far 26 members have been honoured with Honorary Fellowship. The IGS has presently over 5700 members on its rolls. We encourage membership of ISSMGE by individuals for greater interaction with the world body and knowledge update about global happenings in geotechnical engineering.
The increasing demand for world class infrastructure – highways, power projects, required by a rapidly growing economy, demands that geotechnical engineers be at the forefront of these colossal activities. We will be the focus of public and private endeavour.
JOURNAL AND NEWSLETTER
In the early years of inception Annual Reports were published containing information on the technical activities of the members. The first Bulletin was published in 1956, which contained technical papers contributed by the members. The Bulletin was changed into a quarterly journal in 1962. In addition to technical papers, it included a News and Note feature. Since 2012, with Vol.42, the Indian Geotechnical Journal is being published by M/s Springer Nature India Private Limited for qualitative improvement and international reach and now it is in its 53rd years of publication. Significantly the Journal has been made accessible ‘ONLINE’ to all IGS members free of cost. The Journal has a wide circulation and is retrieved internationally. The journal is being published with six issues per year since 2019. From October 1968, a separate quarterly Newsletter was introduced. The IGS News has been made more articulate. Papers/Articles on various topics in geotechnical engineering are being published. From 2019 year, the IGS Newsletter has begun to publish a short summary of recently awarded doctoral theses and job openings in the area of Geotechnical Engineering in both academia and industry. The Newsletter is in its 55th volume.
LOCAL CHAPTERS
To promote closer interaction amongst geotechnical engineers spread all over the country, local chapters of the Society were introduced in 1968 and at present Fifty-Two local chapters are functional at length and breadth of the country, practically covering all the States.
The local Chapters are encouraged and funded to organise special courses, conferences, seminars, symposia, workshops and arrange lectures by local and visiting experts. The society is invited by one of its local chapters each year to host the Annual General Session along with a National Conference/Symposium. In order to encourage IGS Chapters to organise more and more activities, IGS annually gives the best Local Chapter award.
To encourage Young Geotechnical Engineers below 35 years of age, the Society biennially hosts ‘Indian Young Geotechnical Engineers Conference’ for the benefit of Young Geotechnical Engineers. So far, nine such Conferences have been organised and the last one was held by IGS-Aurangabad Chapter on 21-22 March, 2023.
CONFERENCES
Annual General Sessions of IGS are held in different parts of the country. In the early years, Technical Sessions were organised along with the General Body Meetings. Later, these were developed into Symposia. From 1978, regular Annual Conferences have been organised and now they are known as Indian Geotechnical Conferences (IGCs). Over the years, it has been the endeavour to bring IGCs to the level of International standard. The proceedings of these Conferences were regularly published till 2012. From IGC-2013 onwards only Electronic version on CDs are released for easy handling. IGC-2023 is being organised in Dec.2023 on a grand scale by IGS-Roorkee Chapter.
Under the auspices of the ISSMGE, the First Asian Regional Conferences (ARC) was held in New Delhi in 1960 and the Fifth Asian Regional Conference was held in the year 1975 at Bangalore. The 13th ARC was held at Kolkata in the year 2007. Thus IGS have the unique distinction of hosting first, 3 ARCs by any Asian Country.
The IGS had also the unique distinction of hosting the 13th International Conference on Soil Mechanics and Geotechnical Engineering in India at New Delhi, in the year 1994, which was acclaimed as “Magic Carpet Conference”.
Most significantly, IGS hosted the prestigious 6th ICEG 2010 (International Conference on Environmental Geotechnics) at New Delhi in the year 2010 at New Delhi, which was a grand success. 6th Asian Young Geotechnical Engineers Conferences AYGEC in 2008 at Bangalore.
CONTRIBUTION TO INTERNATIONAL SOCIETY
As an affiliated Member Society of ISSMGE, many of our members are members of ISSMGE. Besides, three of our members namely Dr. K.L. Rao, Prof. Dinesh Mohan and Prof. M.R. Madhav had the distinction of having served as Vice Presidents representing Asia in the International Body.
IGS members have functioned as Chairmen, Co-chairmen, General Reporters, Co-Reporters and Panellists at International Conferences and served with distinction. IGS nominates its representatives in the various Technical Committees formed by ISSMGE and some of its members have served these prestigious Committees as Chairmen and Secretaries. We have initiated close interaction with, National Societies of SAARC countries also. IGS has also hosted several TC sponsored International Conferences, symposium and workshops. India have won the bids for hosting 12th International Symposium on Field Monitoring in Geomechanics (ISFMG 2026) to be held at IIT-Indore and 1st Geotech. Asia to be held at Mumbai in 2025. IGS have signed Agreement of Co-operation with Geotechnical Societies of USA, Japan, Korea and Brazil, Geo-Institute of ASCE and similar agreements with some other countries are on the anvil. Joint Workshops with all these Societies are regularly organised.
Many papers have been presented by IGS members at the International Conferences and the Asian Regional Conferences projecting the research and developments in the country.
We had record participation in 17th ARC 2023 Kazakhstan, having 42 delegates participated and 43 papers sent for the proceedings. Over the years, a record number of delegates are attending ISSMGE sponsored international Conferences (ICSMGE).
IGS AWARDS
A number of awards have been instituted by the IGS for outstanding technical papers published through the Society. Besides, Prof. G.A. Leonards of Purdue University has instituted an award for the best Ph.D. thesis in Geotechnical Engineering, IGS-Kueckelmann award is given to eminent geotechnical engineer, who has made significant contributions to the profession in India. Besides 22 Awards are given to authors of best paper on different topics and 15 Young Geotechnical Engineer (YGE) Best Paper Awards are given to Young Engineer to motivate and encourage Young Geotechnical Engineers to get involved and participate in Geotechnical research and field work. A best doctoral thesis award is also given annually. IGS has instituted a new Annual Award for the Best Doctoral Thesis from the Non-Premier Institutions sponsored by Prof. M.R. Madhav from the year 2022.
To encourage Chapter oriented activities, a prestigious Award designated IGS-Ferroco Terzaghi Oration akin to Mercer Lecture of ISSMGE has been instituted for outstanding contribution to Geotechnical Engineering. The first oration in this series was delivered by Prof. Harry Poulos. The Award carries a prize of Rs. One Lakh plus expenses.
To encourage innovative design of instruments in Geotechnical Engineering, a new biannual award namely IGS-Mr. H.C. Verma Diamond Jubilee Award has been instituted by M/s AIMIL Ltd. a Pioneering Instrument organisation in memory of their founder Mr. H.C. Verma.
Another prestigious award, IGS-Sardar Resham Singh Award for “Innovative Original Research Applications/Procedures to benefit Infrastructure Projects in the field” has been instituted by M/s HEICO, yet another pioneering Instrumentation Company in memory of their founder Sardar Resham Singh.
IGS has instituted an Award especially for woman for Best Woman Researcher in Geotechnical Engineering (sponsored by Prof. R.N. Shahi in memory of his late wife, Smt. Prabhawati Shahi). IGS have instituted four new professional awards from the year 2022.
IGS ANNUAL LECTURE
In 1978, a prestigious Annual IGS Lecture series was instituted through which an eminent geotechnical engineer of the country is honoured by requesting him to deliver a lecture on his work. So far forty-five Annual Lectures have been delivered. The 46th IGS-Annual Lecture is scheduled to be delivered during IGC-2023 at Roorkee.
WEBSITE
IGS has own Website and the Web Portal has been developed to encompass all uptodate facilities. IGS Web Portal has been developed with web contents, website use, updating user information, digital library, social networking portal etc. which has been one of our priorities. IGS website was re-launched on 30th September 2023 during the EC meeting at Jalandhar. Another important achievement has been realization of ‘ELECTRONIC ONLINE VOTING’ which has been successfully introduced on experimental basis during 2012 election. Eventually, we may use only online Voting System in future elections.