One man think tank

He will soon celebrate his 68th birthday, but this bachelor of engineering from Mysore University, is not looking forward to a life of rest or relaxation. After handling his business for many years, he has now completely dedicated his time to civic and society welfare. Muralidhar Rao is a core group member of Rera-Karnataka, advocating the building up of a properly constituted regulatory regime in the real estate sector. He was the charter president of Praja-Raag, a research, analysis, advocacy group and is also a member of the Indian Liberal Group.

That’s not all. He’s an active participant in various civil society groups like CAF, Janaagraha, Public Affairs Centre, Civic, Proof, Environment Support Group and Hasiru Usiru, a tree protection group working to sustain the greenery in Bengaluru.

“Immediately after graduation, I started my own manufacturing unit, which was among the leaders in the field, but, since the ultimate customers were the electricity boards, which even today are bankrupt, I sold my business, and got into a business consultant mode. After my children became independent professionals in their own capacity, I decided to devote full time to civil society activities. I’ve been associated with most civil society groups in the city for long. I have been thrown out from a few too, since I am not averse to talking politically incorrect language, which many of my associates were not comfortable with. Presently, I am active in Praja, an open forum for debates on civic issues. Praja has won a number of awards, from Volvo for some of our sustainable mobility pursuits, like Namma Railu, Bus Day and Cycle Day. Among my proudest moments was, when an IIM student, who was studying public bus transport services as part of his MBA course, called to say that he would rate us as among the best repositories for intellectual property. I would in fact claim similar standing in quite a few other fields too, more particularly power supply, in which field I was professionally involved through my company membership of CII, IEEMA, etc,” shares Murali.

All this keeps the man motivated and on his toes, as he feels that in this democracy, changes have to come about through debates. Murali adds, “With the wealth of experience I have gathered, I see it as my duty to the future generation to involve myself continuously in trying to provide them a better quality of life.” This man was also a member of a capacity building exercise targeted at City Municipality officials under an Ecocity Programme, organised by Centre for Sustainable Environment and Heritage in partnership with INWENT and GTZ under the aegis of the Ministry of Environment; Forests, co–chairman, commuter comfort task force of the BMTC, the government-owned public bus transport service provider and also a part of ‘Nagarik’, Bengaluru, a citizen’s voluntary initiative.

Whenever he can take some time off, he plays badminton and golf. “I have an interest in old Hindi songs too, and love to croon, but only when nobody is listening,” he quips with a smile.