The All India Council for Technical Education (AICTE) has signed a Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) with the Indian Plumbing Association (IPA) in order to introduce a course on plumbing in Engineering and Architecture institutes of the country. 

The course will be available to students enrolled in Engineering, Architecture and Interior Design programmes, and graduates with a Major Degree in Civil, Environmental, and Mechanical Engineering, Architecture, or Interior Designing. The course will comprise four credits and will be titled, Plumbing (Water and Sanitation). The MoU was signed on April 14 in Goa by Prof Anil Sahasrabudhe, Chairman of AICTE and Gurmit Singh Arora, National President of the Indian Plumbing Association. A full minor degree course in Plumbing is also being proposed as part of the MoU. 

The IPA will train Institutional Faculty under the AICTE's Faculty Development Programmes to deliver this course. Prof Sahasrabudhe stated that a "strong requirement" for a course on Plumbing in Engineering and Architecture curriculum was observed because good plumbing eventually determines the health of the building.  "The Indian Plumbing Association and the AICTE have collaborated to create a 50-hour plumbing course that would be 80 per cent theory and 20 per cent practise," he said.