Dr. Narendra is an educator who has served as a Deputy Director General and as a Vice-Chancellor in many departments and universities and has contributed a lot to the field of agricultural education and research.

Dr. Narendra Singh Rathore is currently working as a Campus Director in the Geetanjali Institute of Technology and Science in Udaipur.

Dr. Narendra hails from a small village in Pali district and completed his schooling till the 4th standard from there itself. After that, his father got transferred and he came to Udaipur. Narendra says that it was a costly affair to join a private school and hence he started studying at a government school and continued there till the 8th standard. For his further studies till the 11th standard, he joined Navbharat School.

Dr. Rathore says that he appeared for engineering entrance examinations after that and got admission offers from many engineering colleges like BITS-Pilani, Kashmiri Gate Engineering College, Udaipur, and MBM Engineering College, Jodhpur. However, he opted for Agriculture Engineering from CTAE, Udaipur.

After completing his engineering in 1981, he got a job as a Junior Engineer in Sultanpur, Kota on a project related to Chambal Command Area Development.

Dr. Narendra adds that he quickly lost interest in the job as he was more into teaching and wanted to work in the academic field. After four months of working in Sultanpur, he started working as a lecturer at CTAE, Udaipur. After that, he became an Assistant Professor at Sheth M. C. College of Dairy Sciences, University of Gujarat, and worked there for six months.

Dr. Rathore then joined Udaipur University (Now Maharana Pratap University of Agriculture and Technology). After that, he opted for higher studies and took admission to IIT-Delhi and completed his M.Tech in Energy Studies, and subsequently did a Ph.D. as well.

Dr. Narendra shares that he also started getting many offers for international training. He attended a USDA-sponsored training course on Bioenergy at the University of Arizona, Tucson. He learned about waste recycling and resource recovery systems from a university in Western Australia. Then, he pursued a course in Agriculture Business Management from the University of Cortland, USA, and one from Oxford University in the Bio-Energy field. He has been to twenty-three countries and has visited institutes like the Asian Institute of Technology in Bangkok and the Asian Institute of Management in Manila.

Dr. Narendra says that while working as an assistant professor, he was soon promoted to associate and then to professor and dean of the renewable energy department.

In 2004, he was asked to lead the College of Dairy and Food Sciences and then promoted to the Dean of Student Welfare, where he worked for the next nine years. Dr. Rathore was again promoted and started working at the College of Technology and Engineering, Udaipur. Narendra then worked briefly at ICAR as Deputy Director.

Dr. Narendra joined as a Vice-Chancellor at Sri Karan Narendra Agriculture University, Jobner. Then, he worked as a Deputy Director-General and Vice-Chancellor at Maharana Pratap University of Agriculture and Technology.

Dr. Narendra shares that after completing his tenure at Maharana Pratap University, he came to know about GITS and joined there as a Campus Director with a vision of increasing visibility and getting new-age technology to the college.

At GITS, Dr. Narendra is focusing on the implementation of the National Education Policy and wants to focus more on skill development. Dr. Narendra feels that the new education system should focus on creating entrepreneurs and job givers.

Regarding choosing a career, Dr. Rathore feels it is a tough decision for students to choose a stream after the 10th standard. He thinks that children should follow their interests and urges parents not to be forceful and dominate decision-making in their lives.

When asked about a childhood memory that changed his life, Dr. Narendra says he had a favorite teacher, Mr. Ganesh Lal Nagda. However, once Narendra made a grave mistake, his teacher, Mr. Ganesh, stopped talking to him instead of scolding him. Narendra feels that such a social boycott by his teacher changed his ways in life, and he realized not to break anyone’s trust in life.

Talking about his achievements, Dr. Narendra says that he has been lucky enough to not experience many setbacks in life. He says that he got a chance to be a Deputy Director General two times and has served as a Vice-Chancellor for four universities. Narendra shares that when he became Deputy Director General-Education, he worked with the authorities to get agriculture education declared as a professional degree. He also started the accreditation process of agriculture universities which was not there before. Dr. Narendra also worked with the then DG, Dr. Trilochan Mahapatra, and minister Shri Radha Mohan in coordination with the PMO to receive a loan from the World Bank for National Agriculture Higher Education Project. Dr. Narendra shares that when he joined MPUAT, its ranking was 51 but with his efforts, it improved to 26 in the first year and 15 in the second year. Dr. Narendra also adds that he also received the Best Vice-Chancellor award from the Governor for innovations incorporated by him in MPUAT.

Talking about failures, Dr. Narendra says that he tried for the post of Director General but could not get it. He feels that failures in life are as important as successes and help in learning life lessons.

When asked about which is more important, education or experience, Dr. Narendra opines that after completing a degree a person knows what to do but the way of working and the process of doing a thing perfectly comes from experience.

When asked about his role models, Dr. Narendra says that his mother is the one for him. She always motivated her kids to do their work the right way in life and never overestimate themselves. His father also had a great impact on his personality and his dedication to his family always inspired Narendra. He says that he also met many exceptional teachers in his life who taught him many things. He learned a lot from Dr. N.K. Bansal, who had a composed and balanced demeanor.

Dr. Narendra advises everyone to follow the principle of 4-Ps in life:

Planning- doing purposeful planning

Preparation- doing prayerful preparation

Proceeding- positively moving ahead, and

Pursue- persistently pursuing things in life

In his free time, Dr. Narendra likes listening to songs and watching South Indian movies.