A.Vaidyanathan, former member of the Planning Commission, died in Coimbatore on Wednesday night. He was also professor at the Madras Institute of Development Studies and Centre for Development Studies.
Mr. Vaidyanathan had chaired the Government of India Task Force on Revival of Cooperative Credit Institutions in 2004 and was a member of the K.N. Raj Committee on Taxation of Agricultural Income (1969-70).
An alumnus of Loyola College, Chennai, he received his doctoral degree in economics from Cornell University, USA,and joined the National Council of Applied Economic Research (NCAER) in 1956.
He was a member of the perspective planning division of the Planning Commission from 1962 to 1972 and worked along with Pitambar Pant during his stint at the Food and Agricultural Organisation, Rome.
After a term at the World Bank between 1972 and 1976, he returned to join Prof. K.N. Raj as a member of the faculty of Centre for Development Studies, Thiruvananthapuram. He was closely associated with State-level planning in Kerala, Karnataka and Tamil Nadu.
Mr. Vaidyanathan was also involved in developing India’s statistical system and the National Sample Survey, and his scholarly work covered agricultural policy, water management and national statistics.
He was a member of the Central Board of the Reserve Bank of India and was one of the survivors of the terrorist attack on Mumbai’s Taj Mahal Hotel in November 2008. He is survived by his wife Shanta, daughters Rama Baru and Radhika Vaidyanathan.
