Dr. Balaji is the founder of OMCAR Foundation. (Organization for Marine Conservation Awareness and Research), which later got established as OMCAR Palk Bay Environmental Education Centre in southeast coast of India. He started to explore local coast and seas when he was a teenager, and did his first independent research on sea horse exploitation in 1998 during his B.Sc., He made his own underwater camera and snorkeling equipment to independently explore underwater life with local fishers, from whom he learned skin diving. Later he did M.Sc. in Marine biology, and volunteered in NGOs that showed him the difference between the knowledge in literature and local fishers about the coasts and seas. After the final exams, he borrowed an old Yamaha bike from his friend, and travelled 1200 kms alone for marine conservation awareness in 2012 and made a solo sea kayak expedition of 600 kms for the same purpose. He has ten years of field experience as a project leader and consultant in community based mangrove restoration techniques for mitigating natural disasters and sustainable fishery in southeast coast of India.
Now, he is a project investigator of a seagrass GIS mapping research project funded by NRDMS, Ministry of Science and Technology. He is the member of IUCN CEC. He received National Geographic Conservation Grant in 2014 for studying dugong habitats in Palk Bay. He received IUCN Young Professional Award in 2012 during IUCN World Conservation Congress in 2012, and his organization received Tamil Nadu State Environmental Award in 2014 and India Geospatial Excellence Award in 2015. He is leading marine conservation education, research and In-situ conservation activities at OMCAR Palk Bay Centre.