Dr. Jitendra Bhatia has had the unique distinction of pursuing his entire post-school academic education at IIT Bombay. After a stint with Hindustan Lever at Mumbai, Dr. Bhatia joined Balmer Lawrie & Co. Ltd. in 1980 as Manager (R&D) and subsequently General Manager ( R&D) at Calcutta, where he had the responsibility of establishing and managing the R&D Centre of the company.

In 1990, Dr. Bhatia took over the Grease and Lubricants SBU of Balmer Lawrie, and played a key role in developing cooperation with the Fuchs Group of Germany, which eventually led to the formation of the new Indo-German joint venture company, Balmer Lawrie- Fuchs Ltd. Dr. Bhatia was nominated wholetime Director of the new company in 1994 and became its first Managing Director in 1995.

Dr. Bhatia is well known in the field of lubrication, tribology and speciality chemicals. He is a member of ASTM, STLE, OTA, IIChE, Vice President of Tribology Society of India and member of the Executive Committee of the newly formed Indian Lubricants Manufacturers and Marketers’ Association. He has acted as a UNIDO expert and has presented papers/talks at various Indian and International fora.

Yet another and totally divergent aspect of Dr. Bhatia’s personality is a well-known creative prose writer in Hindi. Widely published in leading Hindi magazines, he has three collections of short stories, two novels and two plays to his credit. His writings have been translated into all major languages of India and the Marathi translation of his book ‘Pratyakshadarshi’ won the Sahitya Akademi award for 1997.