Page 42 - BCICAI-Connect-Dec-2023

Speakers Profile

Parameswaran Iyer

Executive Director The World Bank Group

Parameswaran Iyer is the World Bank’s Executive Director in Washington, DC, representing
India, Bangladesh, Bhutan, and Sri Lanka. Prior to this, he was the CEO of NITI Aayog, India’s
National Public Policy Think Tank.
Mr. Iyer is an Indian Administrative Service officer from 1981 batch. From 2016 to 2020, he
headed the execution of the $20 billion Swachh Bharat Mission (SBM), the country’s flagship
program. He was also the Secretary to the Government of India in the Ministry of Drinking
Water and Sanitation. The SBM focused on large-scale behavior change and provided access
to safe sanitation to 550 million people.

Mr.Iyer has worked in the water and sanitation industry for over 25 years, 16 of those
years were spent with the World Bank. He has also written two books, “The Swachh Bharat
Revolution” and “Method in Madness,” both of which were published by Harper Collins.

Air Marshal P. V. Iyer, AVSM, VSM (Retired)
Indian Air Marshall (Retd) & Author

Air Marshal Iyer served in the Air Force for 36 years, from 1951 to 1987. He belongs to the
Logistics Branch and was trained in the Air Force Academy in Coimbatore.
In 1976, when Iyer was 47 years old, he began to train with enthusiasm to become fit, and the
fitness journey that he began took the form of regular running and gym work. He undertook
extraordinary methods of training. For example, he tied a five-kilo belt across his waist and
ran up and down several sand dunes for two hours at a time, on the banks of the Ganga,
when he was stationed in Air Force, Kanpur. The stamina gained by such training enabled
him to win a gold medal in the 5000 meters running race, in the Asian Veterans Athletic
Tournament held in Singapore, in 1981, at the age of 52, competing against athletes from
many Asian countries like Japan, Indonesia, etc.

Iyer maintains a running diary, in which he notes down details of his running every day.
According to those diaries, he has run more than 120,000 kilometers, (one hundred and twenty
thousand kilometers), during a period of 46 years. This includes several marathon races of
42 kilometers, and an ultra-marathon, from Agra to Delhi, a distance of 240 kilometers.

His special appointments in the Air Force include a three year tenure, as an Assistant Air
Force Attachéin the Indian Embassy in Moscow, between 1967 and 1970. He commanded
several Air Force units and took over as the ACAS Lgs (Assistant Chief of Air Staff, Logistics,
in Air HQ, New Delhi), in 1984.. He also served as the Chairman, Air Force Sports Control Board.

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