(12 February 1947 – 19 December 2025 )
Subhash Bhatnagar (born on 12 February 1947) graduated from IIT Madras in 1968 and immediately joined the MBA program at IIMA. From May 1970 to January 1972, he worked as a Systems Analyst in the IIMA Computer Centre. He then joined the Doctoral Program at IIMA and, on completion, joined as a faculty in the P&QM Area in May 1975. He was recruited to strengthen IIMA’s academic programs in Information Systems. He piloted a proposal for the establishment of a separate group titled the Computers and Information Systems Group (CISG), which was created in 1980. In his 28-year tenure at IIM Ahmedabad (1975 to 2003), he held the CMC Chair Professorship in Information Technology for six years, served as the Dean for two years, and was also a member of the governing board.
He raised a million-dollar funding from CIDA for the Centre for Telecom Policy Studies, which was established in 1997 in collaboration with McGill University. He was the first coordinator of the Centre for Electronic Governance set up at IIMA with the sponsorship of three large IT companies.
In 1986, he scripted and directed 9 video films (25-30 minutes each) on various topics related to IT, which were telecast by IGNOU and the Government of Madhya Pradesh.
He did consultancy projects in many different countries for the United Nations Office for Project Services, UNDP, International Fund for Agricultural Development, Commonwealth Secretariat, UNESCO, Aid agencies of Germany(GTZ), Denmark, UNFPA, European Commission, ADB, LIRNEasia in Sri Lanka, and the World Bank. He has also been a consultant for many projects for Indian corporate organizations.
From 2000 to 2002, he was on leave from IIMA, working in the Poverty Reduction and Economic Management Unit of the World Bank in Washington DC. He took voluntary retirement from IIMA in 2003 and worked with the Bank for a further period of four years.
He was an Adjunct Professor at the Institute from 2004 to 2018, during which time he taught MBA elective courses, chaired training programs for cabinet members and senior bureaucrats, and led a major research project funded by the GOI to evaluate the impact of eGovernance in 10 States of India.
He has served on many important committees of the GOI in the IT sector, such as the National Advisory Group on E-Governance, Chaired by the Minister of Information and Communication Technology(2006-2010); Steering Committee for the formulation of India’s 12th Five Year plan for the ICT sector chaired by the Minister of State for Planning; Empowered committee on Capacity Building; committee to select a center of excellence from forty national institutions to support the Digital India Initiative in 2017 and an Expert Advisory Group for preparing a draft national policy on e-government set up by the Department of Administrative Reforms.
He has travelled widely to more than 60 countries, delivering keynote/invited speeches; attending meetings and workshops; chairing doctoral defence committees; conducting training programs and doing consulting work.
Remembering him, a PGP’19 alum, Shubham Goyal wrote to us that –
“I graduated from IIM Ahmedabad (IIMA) as part of the PGP 2017-19 batch. I had the privilege of being taught by both Prof. Subhash Chandra Bhatnagar & Prof. Deepti Bhatnagar. I recently came to know about the passing away of Prof. S.C. Bhatnagar & wanted to offer my condolences at the grave loss that both IIMA & the teaching community have sustained in general.
Prof. S.C. Bhatnagar taught me the course CEGVI during my second year of PGP (MBA). He used to strongly say and advocate that “Observation, not age, makes one wise”, a philosophy that continuously drove him to pursue academic rigor, curiosity, and excellence through the years.
I also fondly recall meeting him during my IIMA post-graduation ceremony in March 2019, wherein he congratulated me for my academic achievements and blessed me while saying, “There is no substitute for hard work. Always keep working hard with humility and honesty”, a piece of guidance that has always stuck with me.
Through this mail, I wanted to convey my sincere regards to Prof. S.C. Bhatnagar & wishes to his family + loved ones so that we may all collectively remember him in this grave hour and find the strength to move on.”
Sridhar Rajagopalan, another alumnus of the PGP 1993 batch, wrote,
“I am extremely saddened to hear of the passing of Prof Subhash Bhatnagar. I am a PGP 1993 student and learnt a lot both from Prof Bhatnagar and his wife Prof Dipti Bhatnagar. I developed a deep interest in technology from my interactions and the learnings I got from Prof Subhash Bhatnagar. My thoughts are with his family, and my deepest condolences to Dipti Ma’am.”
Source and acknowledgements:
With thanks to the IIMA Archives for providing reference material on Prof. S. C. Bhatnagar’s career trajectory. The obituary has been edited and supplemented with reminiscences shared by alumni.
