He was commissioned into Corps of Engineers of the Indian Army in June 1977 and later seconded to Survey of India in Oct 1979. He holds the rank of Major General in the Indian Army. He has varied experience in all aspects of surveying and mapping though his specialization is Photogrammetry. He obtained his PG Diploma in Production Photogrammetry with Distinction from ITC, the Netherlands. His thesis ' A multi-source digital topographic data base for India' earned him the Ph.D from Indian Institute of Technology, Delhi.

He served in Army HQ as Director Military Survey and has been involved in forming and implementation of policies. Currently he is Head of NRDMS and NSDI Divisions of Department of Science & Technology spearheading NSDI movement. He traveled abroad widely and had opportunities to study various national mapping organizations and Spatial Data Infrastructure in advanced countries. He served as a member of many expert groups as Member Secretary of the Task Force on NSDI was primarily responsible for spear heading the NSDI movement in India. Currently, he is the CEO of NSDI.

He has been recipient of a number of honours and awards. He was awarded Dolezal Prize of the International Society for Photogrammetry and Remote Sensing (ISPRS) in the congress at Held in Vienna, Austria in 1996. He was awarded the Tata Scholarships for Study Abroad and the Netherlands Government Fellowship. Papers presented by him have won prizes from the National Research and Development Corporation. His paper on the Neighbourhood Mapping with school children, presented at the Cambridge won the best paper prize and the conference passed a resolution to adopt the concept in other countries.

He takes active interest in the professional organizations and is a fellow of Institution of Engineers, Indian National Cartographic Association and Institution of Surveyors besides being a senior member of Computer Society of India, and Institution of Military Engineers.

He has been actively promoting the activities of GIS. GPS and Remote Sensing and has evolved innovative projects for dissemination of these technologies. He has been on the visiting faculty of Jamia Milia, Delhi University, BITS, Mesra, CME Pune, STI and also examiner for various examinations. He has also been enlisted as adviser in TERI, Geospatial Today, CSDSMS etc., During the year of scientific awareness, he launched a project for rural school children in three states of Punjab, AP and West Bengal for dissemination of high technologies of GIS, GPS and Remote Sensing. Under his editorship a lucidly written book was published in the four languages, Telugu, Bengali and Gurumukhi besides English.

His dynamic leadership ahs taken NRDMS programme to a new heights and the programme has increased in size, funding and its relevance to society. There are concurrent programmes of collaborative research with Canada, Norway, UK and The Netherlands.

He takes active part in PCGIAP, Global Mapping, GSDI and OGC. He is also an elected member of the OGC Board.