D. R. Mehta (born 25 June 1937) is a former chairman of

Securities and Exchange Board of India The Securities and Exchange Board of India (SEBI) is the regulatory body for securities and commodity market in India under the ownership of Ministry of Finance within the Government of India. It was established on 12 April 1988 as an executive ...

(SEBI). He is a founder and chief patron of

Bhagwan Mahaveer Viklang Sahayata Samiti Bhagwan Mahaveer Viklang Sahayata Samiti-BMVSS is a Jaipur-based non-profit organization, founded by D.R. Mehta in 1975. It is the world's largest organization for the disabled in terms of fitment of artificial limb, calipers etc., providing them wi ...

(BMVSS), the world's largest organization for the handicapped in terms of free fitment of

artificial limbs In medicine, a prosthesis (plural: prostheses; from grc, πρόσθεσις, prósthesis, addition, application, attachment), or a prosthetic implant, is an artificial device that replaces a missing body part, which may be lost through trau ...

/callipers (

orthotics Orthotics ( el, Ορθός, translit=ortho, lit=to straighten, to align) is a medical specialty that focuses on the design and application of orthoses, or braces. An is "an externally applied device used to influence the structural and functio ...

) etc. Mehta is a recipient of Padma Bhushan, one of the highest Indian civilian awards, for his contribution to social causes.

Early life

Mehta was born at

Jodhpur Jodhpur (; ) is the second-largest city in the Indian state of Rajasthan and officially the second metropolitan city of the state. It was formerly the seat of the princely state of Jodhpur State. Jodhpur was historically the capital of the Ki ...

Rajasthan Rajasthan (; lit. 'Land of Kings') is a state in northern India. It covers or 10.4 per cent of India's total geographical area. It is the largest Indian state by area and the seventh largest by population. It is on India's northwestern si ...

. He is a graduate of arts and law from

Rajasthan University University of Rajasthan is a public and state university in Jaipur, Rajasthan, India and is one of the oldest universities in the state. It was set up on 8 January 1947 as the University of Rajputana and was given its current name in 1956. ...

. He also studied at

Royal Institute of Public Administration The Royal Institute of Public Administration (RIPA) was a British professional public service institution and civil service training organisation that operated in the United Kingdom and overseas from its founding in 1922 to its closure in 1992.Shel ...

, London, UK and the

MIT Sloan School of Management The MIT Sloan School of Management (MIT Sloan or Sloan) is the business school of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, a private university in Cambridge, Massachusetts. MIT Sloan offers bachelor's, master's, and doctoral degree programs, ...

Career

D. R. Mehta joined the

Indian Administrative Service The Indian Administrative Service (IAS) is the administrative arm of the All India Services of Government of India. Considered the premier civil service of India, the IAS is one of the three arms of the All India Services along with the Indian ...

in 1961 and held numerous positions initially in the

Government of Rajasthan The Government of Rajasthan is the supreme governing authority of the Indian state of Rajasthan and its 33 districts. It consists of an executive, led by the Governor of Rajasthan, a judiciary and a legislative. Jaipur is the capital of Raja ...

and later in 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 ...

. Mehta served as chairman of SEBI, the regulator of the capital markets in India, from 1995 to 2002. SEBI is the Indian equivalent of the

U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission The U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) is an independent agency of the United States federal government, created in the aftermath of the Wall Street Crash of 1929. The primary purpose of the SEC is to enforce the law against market ...

(SEC). During Mehta's tenure, a slew of economic reforms were introduced making the Indian capital market one of the most modern and efficient ones in the world, attracting both local and foreign investors. From 1992 to 1995 Mehta served as the deputy governor of the

Reserve Bank of India The Reserve Bank of India, chiefly known as RBI, is India's central bank and regulatory body responsible for regulation of the Indian banking system. It is under the ownership of Ministry of Finance, Government of India. It is responsible for ...

(RBI) which is the

central bank A central bank, reserve bank, or monetary authority is an institution that manages the currency and monetary policy of a country or monetary union, and oversees their commercial banking system. In contrast to a commercial bank, a central ba ...

of India. Still earlier, from 1991 to 1992 he was the director general of Foreign Trade, Government of India, and Ministry of Commerce. Prior to this, from 1989 to 1991, Mehta was additional secretary to the Government of India in the Ministry of Finance, dealing with banking. From 1974 to 1989, except for five years when he was serving the Ministry of Finance of India, Mehta worked for the state government of Rajasthan in various senior positions as the secretary to the government, in the departments of Industries, Mines, and Special Programs of the Poor etc. During this period he was the secretary to the Chief Minister of Rajasthan.

Social work

D. R. Mehta has been active in social field throughout his life. He set up Bhagwan Mahaveer Viklang Sahayata Samiti (BMVSS) in

Jaipur Jaipur (; Hindi Language, Hindi: ''Jayapura''), formerly Jeypore, is the List of state and union territory capitals in India, capital and largest city of the Indian States and union territories of India, state of Rajasthan. , the city had a pop ...

in 1975 and is now its full-time honorary volunteer. Under his leadership, BMVSS emerged as the largest organization for the handicapped in the world, providing artificial limbs/ calipers and other aids and appliances for free. More than 1 million people have been its beneficiaries so far. Mehta's focus on combining social service with science led to a memorandum of understanding between

Stanford University Stanford University, officially Leland Stanford Junior University, is a private research university in Stanford, California. The campus occupies , among the largest in the United States, and enrolls over 17,000 students. Stanford is consider ...

and BMVSS, resulting in the development of a new

knee joint In humans and other primates, the knee joins the thigh with the leg and consists of two joints: one between the femur and tibia (tibiofemoral joint), and one between the femur and patella (patellofemoral joint). It is the largest joint in the hu ...

called the Jaipur Knee. It was hailed by the ''

Time Time is the continued sequence of existence and events that occurs in an apparently irreversible succession from the past, through the present, into the future. It is a component quantity of various measurements used to sequence events, to ...

'' magazine as one of the 50 best inventions of 2009. Mehta is also a well-known animal activist. He has started and has been associated with some animal homes, and has also published literature on animal welfare.

Awards and honours

D. R. Mehta has been honoured at national and international levels. In 2008 he was conferred with the Padma Bhushan by the President of India. Mehta received the TECH Museum Award for Innovation and Its Use for Humanity in Silicon Valley in November 2007. He is also a recipient of the Indian for Collective Action Award, Diwali Behan Award (conferred by the

Dalai Lama Dalai Lama (, ; ) is a title given by the Tibetan people to the foremost spiritual leader of the Gelug or "Yellow Hat" school of Tibetan Buddhism, the newest and most dominant of the four major schools of Tibetan Buddhism. The 14th and current Dal ...

), the CNBC Award for Social Enterprise, Satpal Mittal Award, etc. Mr. Mehta is also a director on the Europe / Asia Board of the

in the U.S. D. R. Mehta has also received the

Rajiv Gandhi National Sadbhavana Award Rajiv Gandhi National Sadbhavana Award (English: Rajiv Gandhi National Communal Harmony Award) is an Indian award given for outstanding contribution towards promotion of communal harmony, national integration and peace. The award was instituted ...

this year. The award, which carries a citation and a cash award of Rs five

lakh A lakh (; abbreviated L; sometimes written lac) is a unit in the Indian numbering system equal to one hundred thousand (100,000; scientific notation: 105). In the Indian 2,2,3 convention of digit grouping, it is written as 1,00,000. For ex ...

, has been given for his outstanding contribution towards promotion of communal harmony, peace and goodwill. In 2013 he was conferred with the

Rajasthan Ratna Rajasthan Ratna (Jewel of Rajasthan or Gem of Rajasthan) is the highest civilian award of Rajasthan. Any person without distinction of race, occupation, position, or sex is eligible for the award. Awardees are given one hundred thousand rupees, ...

by the Rajasthan government

References

Shri Prabhat Kumar is a part of the selection jury in Mahaveer Awards presented by Bhagwan Mahaveer Awards https://theprint.in/ani-press-releases/bhagwan-mahaveer-foundation-announced-winners-for-the-24th-mahaveer-awards-2021/725547/

External links

* http://www.rediff.com/money/1999/mar/17nandy.htm * http://thinkchangeindia.wordpress.com/2008/03/19/mit-meets-cutting-edge-grassroots-technology/ {{DEFAULTSORT:Mehta, D. R. Indian civil servants 1937 births Living people Rajasthani people Indian bankers University of Rajasthan alumni MIT Sloan School of Management alumni People from Jodhpur Securities and Exchange Board of India Recipients of the Padma Bhushan in social work 20th-century Indian businesspeople Businesspeople from Rajasthan