Rajeev Chawla is a retired Indian Administrative Service (IAS) officer of the 1987 batch from the Karnataka cadre. For over two decades, Mr. Chawla has contributed to the development of foundational elements of Digital Public Infrastructure (DPI). He initiated the digitization of land records through the Bhoomi project in Karnataka, which spanned fourteen years from 1998 to 2012. Following this, he held various assignments within the government and concluded his career as Secretary, E-Governance, retiring in 2022. Post-retirement, Mr. Chawla has been supporting the Ministry of Agriculture and Farmers Welfare as Advisor and Chief Knowledge Officer, overseeing the implementation of the AgriStack initiative.
He holds a Bachelor of Technology degree in Electrical Engineering from IIT Kanpur.
Chawla’s achievements have been widely recognized. He received the inaugural Prime Minister’s Award for Excellence in 2006 for the Bhoomi initiative and another in 2002 for digitizing 700 services under Seva Sindhu. Additionally, he was honored with the IIT Kanpur Alumni Award in 2007, the United Nations Public Service Award, and the Commonwealth Innovation Award for Bhoomi.