Shri Nagarajan Vittal, IAS (Retd.) has a distinguished record of 42 years of service in Public Administration working in Govt of India, the State Govt of Gujarat and the joint sector enterprise Gujarat Narmada Valley Fertilizer Company Ltd.

He brought a creative and innovative approach to his work and in every assignment in his career , left his distinguished mark by way of innovation and improvement.

Born on 31st January 1938 at Tiruvananthapuram, Kerala, Shri Vittal graduated in 1958 from the University of Madras with a degree in BSc Honours in Chemistry from Loyola College, Chennai. His mother tongue is Marathi and he is also fluent in Tamil, Hindi and Gujarati. After a short stint as a lecturer in Jamal Mohamad College ,Tiruchirapalli he joined the Indian Administrative Service in 1960 [ Gujarat cadre. ]

In the early part of his career which was in Gujarat, Vittal was closely connected with industrial management and industrial policy making. He was Development Commissioner, Kandla Free Trade Zone (Ministry of Commerce, 1974-77). He revived the Zone which was languishing for 9 years from 1965 when it was founded and significantly increased the number of units and total exports .

He was Industries Commissioner Gujarat from 1977 to 1980 and during his period Gujarat became the first state in the country to set up District Industry Centres throughout the state .

He was Managing Director of the Gujarat Narmada Valley Fertilizer Company (GNFC) from 1982 – 87. He made GNFC into a model public sector enterprise not only in terms of profitability but also in terms of social development and environmental protection.

He took the initiative to get the minor port of Dahej which had never handled ships, fit for importing fertilizers. He was also instrumental in establishing the first English medium college at Bharuch– The Narmada College of Science and Commerce, affiliated South Gujarat University ,Surat.

The two significant sectors where the Indian economy has done well are Information Technology and Telecommunication .Shri Vittal occupied key policy making positions in both these sectors and played a signifant role. Fom June 1990,he was Secretary to the Govt of India, Dept of Electronics (now renamed as Dept of Information Technology) . From October 1993 to September 1994 he was Chairman Telecom Commission .. As Secretary Dept of Electronics, he took the initiative for setting up the Software Technology Parks and evolving timely and specific policy packages for promoting the industry. As Chairman of the Telecom Commission, he played a key role in drafting the historic 1994 National Telecom Policy which threw open telecommunications to the private sector for the first time and paved the way for the spectacular growth of that sector.

After retiring from IAS in 1996, he was appointed by the Govt of India, to be the Chairman of the Public Enterprises Selection Board. He made the procedures of PESB more transparent and improved its pace and effectiveness of work.

On Sept 3 1998, he was appointed as the Central Vigilance Commissioner, being the first CVC selected by the new procedure prescribed by the Supreme Court , under which the selection was to be made by a committee consisting of the Prime Minister, the Home Minister and the Leader of the Opposition in the Lok Sabha. As the CVC he was able to bring greater visibility, credibility and effectiveness to this organization . He is remembered for using information technology to fight corruption for the first time in the world and also pushing the public sector banks to computerize their operations on a wide basis.

After retirement from active service as CVC in Sept 2002, he has been active in the areas of education and the IT sector.

He headed the committee of People Empowerment, Govt of Andhra Pradesh (COPE) [ Dec 2002-Apr 2004.] He was also the Chairman of the sub-committee on data field and data verification for UIDAI .[2009]

Shri Vittal has not only been an effective administrator but is also a thinker and writer on a wide range of issues covering information technology, public governance and management. He has authored 15 books covering management, governance and sociology.

He has been a recipient of many honours including the Dataquest IT Man of the Year (1993) , Lifetime Achievement Award of Dataquest in 2004 , CII (Southern Region) Lifetime Award (2007) and Lifetime Achievement award of the Cyber Society of India[2011] . He is an honorary fellow of the Computer Society of India [1992] and eInformation Systems ,Security ,and Audit Association [2001] and a honorary member of the Institute of Electronic and Telecommunication Engineers as well as the Institution of the Industrial Engineers of India.

On Republic day 2012 the President of India conferred on him the Padma Bhushan award.

In the same year on 23rd December 2013, the Computer Society of India conferred on him the CSI Lifetime Achievement Award.

On 9th March 2016, Voice & Data conferred on him the Voice & Data Awards 2015 for “Lifetime Contribution Telecom Person of the Year 2015”.