D R Mehta

Mehta was born in Jodhpur, Rajasthan, on 25 June 1937. He took degrees in arts and law at the University of Rajasthan and later studied at the Royal Institute of Public Administration in London and at the MIT Sloan School of Management.

Mehta joined the Indian Administrative Service in 1961 and held senior posts in the Rajasthan government between 1974 and 1989, including secretary to the chief minister. He was Additional Secretary in the Union Ministry of Finance handling banking from 1989 to 1991, Deputy Director General of Foreign Trade in 1991-92, Deputy Governor of the Reserve Bank of India from 1992 to 1995, and Chairman of the Securities and Exchange Board of India from 1995 to 2002.

He founded Bhagwan Mahaveer Viklang Sahayata Samiti in Jaipur in 1975. The organisation fits artificial limbs, calipers, crutches, wheelchairs and other aids free of charge, and has become the largest provider of artificial limbs in the world, with more than a million beneficiaries. It works with the Jaipur Foot, the low-cost rubber prosthetic foot developed in Jaipur, and collaborated with Stanford University on the Jaipur Knee. BMVSS runs limb-fitting camps in India and abroad.

Mehta received the Tech Museum Award for Innovation Benefiting Humanity in 2007, the Padma Bhushan in 2008, the Rajiv Gandhi National Sadbhavana Award in 2012, the Rajasthan Ratna in 2013, a Lifetime Humanitarian Award from HOW International in 2016, and an honorary Doctor of Science in 2023.[2][3][4]