Name N. Wanchoo | Died October 20, 1982 | |
Niranjan Nath Wanchoo (also spelt Wanchu) OBE, ICS (May 1, 1910 – October 20, 1982) was a senior civil servant and later, Governor of the states of Kerala and Madhya Pradesh in India. He was educated at the Government College, Lahore and Kings College, Cambridge and the Royal College of Defence Studies, UK.
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Civil servant
He was selected to the Indian Civil Service in 1934 and began his career as a Sub-Collector in Bihar. Over the course of his career, he served, in among other posts, as Joint Secretary in the Ministry of Defence and Chief Controller of defence production (1948-‘57), Secretary to Government of India, Department of Expenditure, Ministry of Finance (1960 – ‘61), Chairman of the Bokaro Steel plant (1965–70) and Secretary to the Government of India, Department of Industrial Development (1968 – ’70). He was also a member of Court of Governors of the Administrative Staff College of India, Hyderabad. He retired as Chairman, Industrial Customs and Prices Bureau in 1972.
Governor
He served as the Governor of Kerala from April 1, 1973 to October 10, 1977 – with C. Achutha Menon, K. Karunakaran and A. K. Antony as Chief Ministers and then as Governor of Madhya Pradesh from October 14, 1977 to August 16, 1978 with Kailash Chandra Joshi and Virendra Kumar Sakhlecha as Chief Ministers.
Other roles
The Planning Commission appointed him the head of a committee to look into industrial development for the backward areas in India and to recommend fiscal and financial incentives for industries in these areas. The Wanchoo Committee recommended that a few areas be selected and fiscal and financial resources be spent to develop these into growth poles rather than spread out resources thinly but uniformly across all backward areas He was also Chairman of Delhi Urban Art Commission in 1982. He died on October 20, 1982.