Yalamanchili Satyanarayana Chowdary (born 2 June 1961), popularly known as Sujana Chowdary or Srujana Chowdary, is an Indian politician Member of Parliament,

Rajya Sabha The Rajya Sabha, constitutionally the Council of States, is the upper house of the bicameral Parliament of India. , it has a maximum membership of 245, of which 233 are elected by the legislatures of the states and union territories using si ...

member from the

Bharatiya Janata Party The Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP; ; ) is a political party in India, and one of the two major Indian political parties alongside the Indian National Congress. Since 2014, it has been the ruling political party in India under Narendra Modi ...

. He was the Minister of State for Earth Sciences of

India India, officially the Republic of India (Hindi: ), is a country in South Asia. It is the seventh-largest country by area, the second-most populous country, and the most populous democracy in the world. Bounded by the Indian Ocean on the so ...

from 9 November 2014 to 8 March 2018. He was an entrepreneur and headed the Hyderabad-based Sujana Group of Industries before retiring from business to join politics.

Early life and career

Chowdary was born in

Kanchikacherla Kanchikacherla is a village in NTR district of the Indian state of Andhra Pradesh. It is located in Kanchikacherla mandal of Nandigama revenue division. Government and politics Kanchikacherla under Kanchikacherla mandal is represented by Na ...

village in the

Krishna district Krishna district is district in the coastal Andhra Region in Indian state of Andhra Pradesh, with Machilipatnam as its administrative headquarters. It is the coastal district of Andhra Pradesh. Machilipatnam is the most populated city in the di ...

Andhra Pradesh Andhra Pradesh (, abbr. AP) is a state in the south-eastern coastal region of India. It is the seventh-largest state by area covering an area of and tenth-most populous state with 49,386,799 inhabitants. It is bordered by Telangana to the ...

. He graduated with a bachelor's degree in Mechanical Engineering from the

Chaitanya Bharathi Institute of Technology Chaitanya Bharathi Institute of Technology (CBIT) is a private engineering college located in Gandipet, near Financial District, Hyderabad, Telangana, India. The college is affiliated to Osmania University and is accredited by the National Boar ...

(CBIT) in

Hyderabad Hyderabad ( ; , ) is the capital and largest city of the Indian state of Telangana and the ''de jure'' capital of Andhra Pradesh. It occupies on the Deccan Plateau along the banks of the Musi River (India), Musi River, in the northern part ...

in 1984. He completed his master's degree in Machine Tool Engineering from the

PSG College of Technology PSG College of Technology is an autonomous, government aided, private engineering college in Coimbatore, India. It is affiliated with Anna University. It is affiliated to PSG and Sons Charities Trust. Among engineering colleges in India, PS ...

Coimbatore Coimbatore, also spelt as Koyamputhur (), sometimes shortened as Kovai (), is one of the major metropolitan cities in the Indian state of Tamil Nadu. It is located on the banks of the Noyyal River and surrounded by the Western Ghats. Coimbato ...

, Tamil Nadu. In 1986, he founded the Sujana Group of Companies.

Political career

Y S Chowdary entered politics in 2010 when he was elected to the

, India's upper house of Parliament, representing the

Telugu Desam Party The Telugu Desam Party (; TDP) is an Indian regional political party operating in Andhra Pradesh and Telangana at the state and central level. Since its founding by N. T. Rama Rao (often referred to as NTR) on 29 March 1982, the party has foc ...

(TDP) from

on 22 June 2010. On 9 November 2014, during the first expansion of the Council of Ministers of Prime Minister

Narendra Modi Narendra Damodardas Modi (; born 17 September 1950) is an Indian politician serving as the 14th and current Prime Minister of India since 2014. Modi was the Chief Minister of Gujarat from 2001 to 2014 and is the Member of Parliament from ...

's NDA Government (

National Democratic Alliance (India) National Democratic Alliance (NDA) () is a centre-right to right-wing and conservative Indian big tent political alliance led by the right-wing Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP). It was founded in 1998 and currently controls the government of Indi ...

), Mr Chowdary was appointed as the Minister of State for Science & Technology, & Earth Sciences. He was elected as the TDP's Parliamentary Leader on 4 June 2014. Chowdary served as member of the Indo-Singapore Parliamentary Friendship Group, jointly set up as a step towards strengthening bilateral ties between the two countries’ Parliaments. He was a member of the

Government of India The Government of India (ISO: ; often abbreviated as GoI), known as the Union Government or Central Government but often simply as the Centre, is the national government of the Republic of India, a federal democracy located in South Asia, c ...

's Parliamentary Standing Committee on Commerce, the Parliamentary Forum on Youth, the Consultative Committee for the Ministry of Food Processing Industries.

Sansad Adarsh Gram Yojana

Under the Sansad Adarsh Gram Yojana (SAGY) programme, Y S Chowdary adopted Ponnavaram village, which is located about 60 km from

Vijayawada Vijayawada, formerly known as Bezawada, is the second largest city in the Indian state of Andhra Pradesh and is a part of the state's Capital Region. It is the administrative headquarters of the NTR district. Its metropolitan region comprises NT ...

in Krishna District of Andhra Pradesh. Under the programme, he has initiated the transformation of the place into a model village by implementing various development programs such as digital class rooms in the local government school, conducting medical camps, laying cement roads, building toilets for the households.

Sujana Charitable Trust

The Sujana Charitable Trust and the Sujana Foundation, manifest the Sujana Group's Corporate Social Responsibility initiatives. The Foundation supports two schools for challenged children in

Chennai Chennai (, ), formerly known as Madras ( the official name until 1996), is the capital city of Tamil Nadu, the southernmost Indian state. The largest city of the state in area and population, Chennai is located on the Coromandel Coast of th ...

, an Old Age Home in

, and grants scholarships and merit awards for excellence to students in the areas of academics,

sports Sport pertains to any form of competitive physical activity or game that aims to use, maintain, or improve physical ability and skills while providing enjoyment to participants and, in some cases, entertainment to spectators. Sports can, th ...

, social entrepreneurship, innovation in engineering, agriculture, poverty alleviation and rural development.

Controversy

YS Chowdary was under media scanner for an allegation by the

Mauritius Commercial Bank Mauritius Commercial Bank (MCB) is a commercial bank in Mauritius. MCB is licensed by the Bank of Mauritius, the country's central bank and the nation's banking regulator. The bank's headquarters are located in Port Louis, Mauritius. Overview ...

Ltd of

Mauritius Mauritius ( ; french: Maurice, link=no ; mfe, label=Mauritian Creole, Moris ), officially the Republic of Mauritius, is an island nation in the Indian Ocean about off the southeast coast of the African continent, east of Madagascar. It incl ...

on the grounds that the company defaulted on the Rs 1.92 billion loan it availed through its subsidiary. This allegation popped up a day after the Rajya Sabha MP-cum-industrialist was sworn in as a Union minister. A clarification from the MPs office later said that he had not secured loan from the

. It was his group firm – Sujana Universal Industries —that borrowed the funds and he only stood as a guarantor to the loan obtained by that step-down subsidiary. On 23 and 24 November 2018, searches were conducted by

Enforcement Directorate The Directorate of Enforcement (ED) is a law enforcement agency and economic intelligence agency responsible for enforcing economic laws and fighting economic crime in India. It is part of the Department of Revenue, Ministry of Finance, Gover ...

, at the residence and office of Sujana Chowdary in Hyderabad and Delhi. The agency claimed, the group of companies belonging to him defrauded banks to the tune of Rs 57 billion. The documents seized by the agency indicated that the group was controlling over 120 companies that were only on paper without any genuine business activities. Chowdary alleged that he was being targeted for political reasons and said he would take legal recourse against the ED. He claimed his companies were maintaining all records and the allegations made by the ED were baseless.

Personal life

Chowdary married Padmaja on 6 August 1989. The couple have two children, Y. S. Karthik and Y. Naga Chandini.

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Chowdary, Y. S. Businesspeople from Andhra Pradesh Telugu Desam Party politicians Living people 1961 births Narendra Modi ministry Telugu politicians Rajya Sabha members from Andhra Pradesh People from Krishna district Bharatiya Janata Party politicians from Andhra Pradesh Rajya Sabha members from the Bharatiya Janata Party