Sri B. P. R. Vithal, Honorary Fellows

B.P.R. Vithal, founder member of CESS, joined the Indian Administrative Service (IAS) in 1950. He was Secretary to Government of Andhra Pradesh in the Planning and Development Department, 1964-74 and Principal Secretary to Government of Andhra Pradesh, Finance & Planning Department, 1974-82. He also worked as an IMF Fiscal Expert and was Member of the Tenth Finance Commission during 1992-94, Chairman, Informal Advisory Committee on Ways and Means Advances to State Governments, Reserve Bank of India, 1998.B.P.R. Vithal is an expert on Centre-State financial relations in India and has written extensively on this subject. He was in-charge of Planning in Andhra Pradesh for over two decades and was Finance Secretary of the State for almost a decade.

He was awarded Honorary Doctorates by Osmania University and Annamalai University.

He was a pioneer in ways of plugging the revenue deficit of Andhra Pradesh. He also initiated regional planning. His contribution to the subject of Indian fiscal federalism is well-known to the administrators and academicians of this field. He debated on the issues of plan-non-plan dichotomy, imbalances in the ToR of Finance Commissions, changing contours of central assistance for state plans, growing centralisation and ever increasing centrally sponsored schemes (CSS). He has written extensively on Public Finance, Federal Financial Relations and Planning.