Mr. Rentala Chandrashekhar received his M.Sc. degree from the Department of Chemistry, IIT Bombay. Later, he joined the Government of India in 1975 as a member of the Indian Administrative Service. He also holds an M.S. in Computer Science from the Pennsylvania State University, USA.

He was the man who established the first Department of Information Technology in the country in Andhra Pradesh, and also heralded some of the most innovative efforts including the public-private partnership (PPP) concept in e-Governance projects. He masterminded the conceptualization, planning and implementation of various key initiatives in the state in the field of Information Technology. The framework that was evolved was widely regarded as pathbreaking and catapulted the State of Andhra Pradesh to the forefront of IT development in the country.

He is with the Government of India from 2002 onwards-first as Joint Secretary (e-Governance) and then as Additional Secretary and as Secretary, Department of Information Technology. He played a leading role in the formulation and adoption by the Government of India in 2006 of the National e-Governance Plan. This Plan set the e-Governance agenda of the country and gave it a citizen and business service orientation.

Mr. Chandrashekhar has received several prestigious awards. Among them are the Prime Minister’s Award for excellence in Public Administration for the year 2007-08 for his outstanding contribution to the MCA21 e-Governance Project; the Award of Distinction by the Post Media Group, Silicon Valley, USA in 1998 for outstanding Public and Community Services and being a Pioneer in Developing Information Technology in the State of Andhra Pradesh; and the Dataquest Pathbreaker Award 2005 for initiating a model of Public-Private Partnership to drive the country’s e-Governance agenda.