A.S. Rao

Founder of ECIL

You would have heard of A.S.Rao Nagar in Hyderabad, one of the faster growing suburbs, where the ECIL HQ is located. But how many know about the man behind the name, Ayyagari Sambasiva Rao, the founder of ECIL, and one of the great Indian scientists of modern era, who had worked with the likes of Homi Bhabha and Vikram Sarabhai.

He was born in a small village Mogallu in West Godavari district on September 20, 1914, which also happens to be the ancestral village of the great revolutionary Alluri Sitarama Raju. Coming from a rather humble family, where his mother had to pawn her ornaments to pay for his education, he studied on scholarships, and joined BHU, where he did his masters in Physics, and worked as a faculty for sometime, doing research work. In 1946, he was selected by Tata Scholarship to pursue his MS in Electrical Engg from Stanford.

On his return to India, he was invited by Homi Bhabha, to join TIFR, for conducting certain experiments on cosmic rays that had not been very succesful. Rao managed to pull off the experiment succesfully, as a delighted Bhabha met him personally, and offered him the job of a Reader in the organization.

“Thus began my long and rewarding association with one of the greatest Indian scientists and one of the ablest admininstrators of scientific enterprise”

He went on to play an important role in India’s nuclear program, in 1953 he joined Atomic Energy Establishment at Trombay, now BARC. It was here he designed India’s first ever nuclear reactor Apsara that was comissioned in 1955, it took just 12 months, and would be one of the great scientific achievements of India, that made the West notice it.

He also was instrumental in setting up the second reactor Cirrus, with the installation of control and safety systems, and also did the design, fabrication, installation and commissioning of the entire electronics system for the 3rd reactor Zerlina, and radiation monitoring system for the plutonium plant at BARC. Rao’s leadership played a major role in setting up the reactors, as well as the safeguards and security measures he set up to protect the employees from radiation effects. The Health Physics Division, Electronics Division, Directorate of Radiation Protection at BARC were all due to the efforts of Rao.

He also played a role in laying the foundation for India’s indigenous electronic development, as director, Electronics Group, BARC. During his tenure, he initiated many development and design programs on electronic materials, professional grade electronic components, digital computers. He lead a team of nearly 1600 scientists, engineers, technicians for comming up with indigenous products, at a time, when India was fully dependent on West for even radio receivers.

After the 1962 War defeat, the Govt realized the need of electronics for defense and nuclear programs, leading to the formation of a national commitee for electronics in 1963, with Bhabha as the chairman, Sarabhai, Bhagavantham and AS Rao as members. The comittee came out with a report, that emphasized on self reliance in electronics to modernize Indian industry. And this in turn would lead to establishment of ECIL in 1967, with Sarabhai as chairman and Rao as the Managing Director.

Till his retirement in 1978, Rao would play a major role in the growth of ECIL, whose idea was his. Till then all electronic components were primarily designed in the West, and India was mainly doing assembly level work. It was a bold move to go for an entirely indigenous electronics design and manufacturing facility, and many in the Govt were quite sceptical.

It was against all such odds, that Rao started out with a team of around 300 scientists, engineers that had the likes of V Rama Rao, U.Venkateswarlu. He adopted a rather decentralized way of management, in sharp contrast to most other PSUs, forming small teams, that worked on the products, and gave them complete freedom. He would duly credit them for success and listen to them patiently when they failed. He formed a group called RAIDS( Review, Analysis, Interpolation and Development Systems), which bought together senior leaders.

One of ECIL’s major achievements was building the entire instrumentation, control systems that would succesfully power India’s nuclear program. In a sense ECIL would be one of the foundation for India’s IT revolution too, and the credit goes to Rao here. India’s first ever digital computer, earth station antenna, automatic message switching systems, were all produced during Rao’s tenure.

When he stepped down in 1978, he had given enough impetus and motivation to ECIL, as also inspiring a whole generation of electronics engineers. He represented India at many international conferences, including UN ones on peaceful usage of atomic energy. He was on the editorial board of many scientific journals, and conferred with the Padma Bhushan in 1972, as also the Shanti Swaroop Bhatnagar award in 1965.

In real life he was known for his very simple and down to earth nature, often taking the bus to work, using public transport mostly. It could have been due to his growing up years of struggle, where he often found it hard to have two meals a day, and lived mostly on the generosity of some kind souls. He passed away on October 31, 2003, but not before leaving a rich legacy in the form of ECIL, and his work in India’s nuclear program. Today when you hear of AS Rao Nagar or pass by it, do take time to remember the man behind.