Skoch Challenger Award 2010 -  Vijay L Kelkar

In a remarkable, 33 year-long career in public policy, Dr. Vijay Kelkar has been one of the key players in the vanguard of India’s economic reforms, making lasting contributions in shaping the development of the economy to this day. His uniqueness lies in the fact that even after his retirement, both the public and private sectors continue to vie for his talent. Among his early contributions was India’s trade policy, as member secretary of the committee that drew up the roadmap for reform of the policy. From that time to his last responsibility of chairing the 13th Finance Commission, causes espoused by Dr. Kelkar exhibited his deep understanding of and dedication to the forces of growth and development. His core competence, however, remains prices and fiscal reform, where he has made waves through petroleum price reform, tax committee recommendations, the Fiscal Reform and Budget Management Act, and now the far-reaching 13th Finance Commission report.

Given away by Dr C Rangarajan, Hon’ble Chairman, Economic Advisory Council to the Prime Minister on this 18th day of March 2010, at New Delhi.

Skoch Challenger Award 2009 - Sam Pitroda

For a man who had never even used a telephone till he was 22 years old, Satyanarayan Gangaram Pitroda, better known as Sam Pitroda, is credited with bringing the telecom and IT revolution to India. He left a reasonably successful business in the US to come back to India to serve the country. Through his mantra of indigenous manufacturing, shared access, rural telephony and using the power of young talent, he made the rural telephone exchange and the Public Call Office – PCO - at every nook and corner of India happen. He was the founding father of Centre for Development of Telematics – C-Dot. Competition from C-Dot ensured India getting one of the cheapest costs per phone line from global companies. He laid the foundation of the new telecom policy and brought in modern management practices through technology missions. He was instrumental in helping kick-start software exports from India and providing economies of scale to computer manufacturing in India. He served India at a great personal cost. On behalf of the ordinary people of India, we salute the extraordinary work of Sam Pitroda through the Skoch Challenger Lifetime Achievement Award.

Given on this 23rd day of January 2009 at New Delhi, by the hands of Mr Wajahat Habibullah, Hon’ble Chief Information Commissioner of India.

Skoch Challenger Awards 2008

The Mazdoor Kisan Shakti Sangathan (MKSS) focuses on issues of transparency in public works. Located in the village of Devdungri, near Bhim in Rajsamand district of Rajasthan, MKSS has only a handful of dedicated workers. But that hasn’t hindered its successful campaign for public right to information. It all started with MKSS demanding access to Panchayat records on the plea that that there had to be transparency in the use of taxpayers’ money for public welfare programmes. Over time, a process called ‘social audit’ – connoting comprehensive review of expenditure and asset creation from public work programmes – has been institutionalised. What started as a movement to bring in transparency in the functioning of a Panchayat later snowballed into a national movement and legislation of the Right to Information (RTI) Act. The MKSS is now working on social audits with the Andhra Pradesh government, and has so far helped recover nearly Rs 7 million. A Skoch team attended one of the social audits in Devdungri recently.

Skoch Challenger Award 2007 - Dr C Rangarajan, Chairman, Economic Advisory Council to the Prime Minister

Dr C Rangarajan is a leading economist of the country, who has played a key role both as an academician and a policy maker. Currently Chairman, Economic Advisory Council to the Prime Minister, he was also Chairman of the 12th Finance Commission. He was Governor of Andhra Pradesh between 1997 and 2003.

As Governor, Reserve Bank of India during 1992-97, he was instrumental in steering the country through Balance of Payments crisis. He initiated far reaching reforms in India’s financial sector to make banks competitive and efficient. These included deregulation of interest rates, introduction of prudential norms and credit regulation, shifting to market determined exchange rate system, making the rupee convertible on the current account and the cessation of the automatic monetization of the budget deficit.

As Chairman of the 12th Finance Commission, he brought about a paradigm shift in fiscal federalism, reinforced the imperative of fiscal responsibility for growth and poverty reduction and defined a framework for fiscal adjustment at the centre and in the states.
 
It was, Dr Rangarajan who introduced computerization in banking system.  Despite facing resistance from trade unions, he went ahead and made it mandatory, starting with RBI followed by banks. He also took the bold decision of opening up bank accounts for women Self Help Groups. This was when many said – don’t do it!  Today there are more than 2 million Self Help Groups with bank accounts. Due to his commitment and his deep foresight, Dr Rangarajan was recently appointed Chairman of the Committee on Financial Inclusion.

He was a Member of the Planning Commission in 1992. A teacher at heart, Dr Rangarajan was for over a decade and half, Professor at the Indian Institute of Management, Ahmedabad before he took up the position of Deputy Governor at RBI.

Skoch Challenger Award 2006 - Mr. C. B. Bhave, CMD, NSDL

A 1975-batch IAS officer of the Maharashtra Cadre was an executive director in charge of the secondary markets at SEBI, Mr C B Bhave set the markets afire when he managed to persuade all market players to agree to accept the new system of trading in dematerialized shares or debentures.  This resulted in setting up of a National Securities Depository Limited or NSDL. Today there are over 7.5 million depositors who have accounts with NSDL, with over 538 billion dollars worth of securities dematted. India has been the fastest to implement paperless trading. With such a track record, it is hardly surprising Mr Bhave’s NSDL has been chosen to implement the Tax Information Network for the Finance Ministry. Mr Bhave is  now playing a crucial role in introducing reforms in tax administration.

Mr. C. B. Bhave, CMD, NSDL receiving the Skoch Challenger Award for Lifetime Achievement from Mr. Mani Shankar Aiyer, Honorable Minister of Panchayati Raj

Skoch Challenger Award 2005 - Dr R H Patil. Chairman, CCIL

Dr Patil has been instrumental in changing the face of the Indian stock markets. Apart from helping to set up the National Stock Exchange that handles more than 10,000 crores a day at transaction costs that are a tenth of what they were a decade back. He helped set up National Securities Depository Limited (NSDL), introducing paperless trading and killing the problem of fake share certificates. Dr Patil also set up the Clearing Corporation of India that handles forex trading that has already brought the costs down by half.

Dr R H Patil. Chairman, CCIL receiving the Skoch Challenger Award for Lifetime Achievement from Mr. Montek Singh Ahluwalia. Deputy Chairman, Planning Commission.

Skoch Challenger Award 2004 - Dr. D.B Phatak, Professor, KReSIT

While our IT Man of the Year Ajai Chowdhry was lobbying the government to cut excise and other duties on computers, Dr D.B. Phatak of the Kanwal Rekhi School of IT in the IIT Mumbai, was finding a technical solution to the same problem. Over 80 per cent of a computer's computing capability, he argued, is never used. So, why not aggregate all the excess computing capacity in one place in an office, he argued. And from this was born the concept of the 'thin client-fat server' - have individual networked PCs with very little computing power, and let them dip into the main server to do all computing.

 But, while that's theoretically appealing, does it work in practice, doesn't work in the office slow down dramatically.. the questions keep rolling. To answer this, Dr Phatak set up an Affordable Solutions Lab at the IIT Mumbai, and actually got companies to test what he was preaching. Today, the LIC has bought 10,000 thin computers and saved about Rs 10 crores. While the amount looks small in real terms, when you see it in terms of the original budget, the figure's significant, especially when the project gets scaled up.

Today, as testimonial after testimonial will tell you, Dr Phatak's associated with most big computing projects, right from SBI's modernization to the Maharashtra government's e-governance initiatives. Maharashtra's IT secretary Mukesh Khullar, for example, talks of two projects - to link 972 police stations across the state and another to allow e-filing of returns by assesses - and points out that had it not been for Dr Phatak's innovative solutions, the projects would have become so costly, they'd never have taken off.

And, apart from just coming up with technical solutions, Dr Phatak keeps visiting sites of projects he's working on, to figure out glitches. An SBI funds e-transfer solution he came up with several years ago just didn't seem to work until, a visit by him showed, branch officials were still waiting for a couriered copy of the transfer-request even after they received it on the mail! Dr Phatak is currently on a sabbatical, preaching the gospel of affordable solutions to those who haven't yet seen the light. May his tribe increase

Dr. D.B Phatak, Professor, KReSIT receiving the Skoch Challenger Award for Lifetime Achievement from Dr. S. Narayan, Economic Advisor to Prime Minister of India.