Rakesh Mohan Agarwal, chairman and managing director (CMD), ITI Limited, began his career with the exciting job of installing telephone exchanges in remote areas to relieve people of the tedium of booking STD calls and waiting long hours. Since then, the telecom landscape has become unrecognisable.
A postgraduate in electronics and communications and an MBA, he joined the Indian Telecommunication Service in 1986 and has rich experience in policy formulation, standardisation planning, and operations and maintenance of telecom networks in different organisations of the Department of Telecommunications (DoT). After taking over as director, marketing, of Bengaluru-based ITI Limited in 2018, he was appointed CMD in October 2019.
Policy has been an area to which Agarwal has contributed greatly. At DoT, he was involved in policy formulation for the adoption and implementation of new technologies such as IPv6, M2M and cloud computing by the telecom and IT industry. In 2013, he brought out the National IPv6 Deployment Roadmap v2 and the Compendium on IPv6-based Solutions/Architecture/Case Studies for time-bound IPv6 implementation by stakeholders across the country. He was the member-convenor of a committee set up by the government to bring out recommendations for the implementation of net neutrality in 2015. Agarwal also formulated the National Telecom M2M Roadmap, which was released in 2015.
Coming back to ITI, it is a company Agarwal feels proud of. In more recent years, the company has played an active role in key initiatives such as Digital India, BharatNet and Network for Spectrum. “ITI went through a period when it was classified as ‘sick’ on account of continuous losses. But we have reinvented ourselves so that we can compete effectively in a dynamic market and expand our footprint in new markets,” he says.
What satisfies Agarwal about his work in the telecom industry is that he makes a contribution to the country’s development. What makes the industry exciting for him is its restless quality. “It is so dynamic. You need to be alert and aware. You need to be ahead of the curve, all the time,” he observes.
Agarwal’s work extends far into the evening. He is rarely home before 8.30 p.m. or 9 p.m., by which time his family is impatient to have dinner. With family time being very limited, he makes it a point to go for short breaks with them every two to three months, usually to places near Bengaluru.