Dr. Chandra Mohan Bodhapati is an IAS Officer presently working for the Government of Tamil Nadu as the Commissioner, Chennai Corporation. He is also the Managing Director for the Tamil Nadu Horticulture Development Agency, working with farmers for improving their livelihoods by leveraging technology for improving farm production and productivity.
A medical doctor by education, he holds a Master’s degree in Management and has completed his Post Graduation in Environmental Management and Sustainable Development.
As Collector of Madurai, Tamil Nadu, he mainstreamed environmental concerns into the development agenda, conceptualizing and bringing out a Water resources atlas for Madurai. The Food for Work program was leveraged to rejuvenate traditional water harvesting structures ensuring that at-least one such structure was taken up in each panchayat. A new water harvesting structure was built at Pallapatti in MelurTaluk in response to the 50 years of unmet demand, which now provides assured irrigation to 10 downstream tanks covering an area of 1100 acres. This initiative was demand driven and was taken up entirely with local initiative. They contributed by providing land, contributing material or even labor. By harnessing ICT for empowering people and better delivery of services, Land records were fully computerized and made online for the whole district. ICT was also used to ensure timely and regular payment of pensions to more than 65000 NSAP pensioners in the district. Grievance redressal monitoring was computerized to enable responsiveness in administration.
He has also worked as Additional Collector and Project Officer at the District Rural Development Agency, Kancheepuram where he lead the poverty reduction effort in the district by enabling rural poor be a part of equitable and transparent decision making process. Prior to joining the DRDA, Chandra Mohan was Deputy Commissioner in charge of Health and Solid Waste Management in the Corporation of Chennai, the local government responsible for the civic affairs of Chennai. He led the multi-partner, multipronged HIV/AIDS control effort for the city of Chennai as Project Director of the AIDS control Society. He was also Vice-Chairman of the Tuberculosis Control Society.
His work and experience made him focus on health and environmental issues, taking up interventions for morbidity and mortality reduction. He is particularly interested in the interplay of poverty, environment and health and their resultant effect on the quality of life.