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Revision as of 04:44, 3 January 2011 by 67.169.37.113 (talk)(diff) ← Previous revision | Latest revision (diff) | Newer revision → (diff)Pradip Baijal is a retired officer of the Indian Administrative Service. He is a 1966 batch officer from the Madhya Pradesh cadre. He is part a long list of IAS officers who have spent time at Oxford University for specialised training. Business Standard, in an article in 2003 called him a storm-raiser.
In his distinguished career, Pradip Baijal held senior administrative positions in the Ministry of Finance and industries at state level but he first came into prominence as the disinvestment secretary in the BJP Govt on 1999 and was part of the team that was involved in the disinvestment of various Govt companies like BP, VSNL, IPCL and Maruti.
He was appointed chairman of TRAI in a critical phase in 2003 when Arun Shourie of the BJP was minister, and then for a brief time with Dayanidhi Maran. He retired as the Chairman of the Telecom Regulatory Authority of India (TRAI) in March 2006.
Education
He was trained as an engineer before he joined the Indian Administrative Service. Baijal earned his BE (Honours) in Mechanical Engineering from the Indian Institute of Technology at Roorkee. He took part in a one year visiting fellowship at Oxford University on the Privatisation of Public Enterprise.
Accomplishments
During his tenure, TRAI articulated and adopted allegedly pro-development and consumer-friendly regulatory practices and made important recommendations on the growth of telecom services in rural India to the Government of India. TRAI has also urged the industry to think of next generation telecom networks. Baijal, directly dealt with a variety of key issues impacting the telecom industry in India, including changes to the Access Deficit Charge (ADC) that punctured mobile phone bills.
In fact, it was he who is credited with suggesting a reduction in ADC, a fee that private operators pay BSNL for compensating its rural operations, and its eventual withdrawal by 2009. This was by no means a small decision given the clout and might of BSNL and the support of department of telecom to continue with the levy, which works out to not less than Rs 5,000 crore.
Another step of far-reaching implications was Baijal's continued thrust on unified licensing, under which an operator can offer telecom and broadcasting services on a single licence and next generation networks for Indian telecom sector that would bring down the network costs significantly. As a result of his incredible work in the sector, the sector grew remarkably - from adding 0.2 million subsribers a year, the sector was adding close to 20 million subscribers monthly by the time he retired.
Post-Retirement
He recently co-founded a strategy consulting firm Noesis. Noesis was established to provide strategic advisory services based on a blend of experience, foresight, a deep understanding of the economic and business landscape, and the ability to take a holistic view.