Prof. (Dr.) D. P. Agarwal

Former Chairman, UPSC

Prof. Agrawal was the Founder-Director of the ABV- Indian Institute of Information Technology and Management, Gwalior, India, Gwalior. He was responsible for the conceptualisation, design, and construction of the Institute campus from ground zero. He was also responsible for development and design of new academic programmes with dynamic curriculum, creation of new models of education delivery and assessment, encompassing peer learning, mentoring, self-learning, learning to learn and continuous evaluation, and linkages/collaboration with industries and universities abroad.

Prof. Agrawal started his career as a faculty in the Department of Mechanical Engineering, Indian Institute of Technology, Delhi in 1975. In 1994, from being a Professor and Dean at IIT Delhi, he took over as the Joint Educational Adviser (Technical) in the Ministry of Human Resource Development (MHRD), Government of India. While at the Ministry, he initiated policies for the growth of quality technical education and was instrumental in conceptualising several new institutions in the emerging paradigm of Information Technology. He has contributed to the development of Centres for Excellence in higher technical and polytechnic education. As the National Project Director of the World Bank, he assisted Technician Education Projects. The implementation strategies adopted by him created, for the first time, very high participation of women (30%) in technician education. The outcomes of these projects were rated highly by the World Bank which disseminated the implementation strategies adopted here as a model for other countries.

Prof. Agrawal was the Managing Director of Educational Consultants India Ltd. (EdCIL), a Government of India PSU, where he brought about major changes in the organisational work culture including decentralised decision-making and transferring functional responsibilities to lower executives. He has been very active in teaching and research throughout his career and has supervised over 100 theses including 20 Ph.D.s and published over 150 research papers covering areas of Turbo-Machinery, Fluid Dynamics, Information Technology, Management and E-Governance. His research papers have received awards in India & abroad.

He has shouldered many important national-level responsibilities with distinction. To mention a few: Chairman of Central Regional Committee of AICTE, Chairman/Member of Board of Governors of many technical institutes, Chairman, National Group on Technology Management, DST, Member, working groups for Planning Commission on technical education etc.