MANIT alumni secures place in Limca Book of Records

Bhopal: A Bhopal native and graduate of MANIT has designed a low-cost satellite dish antenna that saved crores for the government by identifying Spectrum dodgers.
Ajay Singhal’s feat has earned him the tag ‘Spectrum Man’ and a place in Limca Book of Records.
Singhal, an alumnus of Campion School and Nalanda Public School, is an Indian Radio Regulatory Service (IRRS) officer under the communications and IT ministry.He heads the International Satellite Monitoring Earth Station, Jalna, Maharashtra. A 1997-batch alumnus of MANIT, he cracked UPSC at 22 years. When he was posted to ISMES Jalna in 2012, the condition of the satellite earth station was not that good. Its technical set-up had not kept pace with time.
“Since the primary work of ISMES is to monitor the satellite spectrum beamed from satellites in space, the non-upgradation of the set-up had resulted in a poor situation,”Singhal said. His innovation — ‘Orbit Spectrum’ — came as a lifeline. The dish antenna is only 2.4m in size. “It is capable of monitoring 10 different types of satellite services,” said 40-year-old Singhal.
Singhal and his team revived the satellite earth station by developing a low-cost manual steerable dish antennae system, dubbed ‘Small Wonder’ and a software database named ‘SAJAG’, which was launched in 2014. Singhal and his team received the record certificate recently for the innovation that resulted in exposing persistent irregularities in satellite-based services across the country.
Besides the revival of the station, Singhal’s gadget has witnessed unprecedented success in identifying violations of satellite spectrum by service providers. His ruthless approach in exposing spectrum defaulters has earned him the tag of ‘Spectrum Man’.
Certain DTH service providers were found to be the major violators, along with many teleports and DSNG operators, say sources. For the first time in the history of satellite industry, as many as 60 cases of violations were highlighted in the first six months of 2014, leading to the ministry issuing notices to 20 major service providers.
Singhal’s feat has been acknowledged at various levels of the government. He has been nominated for the Prime Minister’s Award and has won the G-files Governance Award 2015 along with two other bureaucrats of Maharashtra, Meera Borwankar (IPS) and PK Deshmukh (IAS).
His parents live in Gulmohar Colony, Bhopal.
Singhal’s gadget has witnessed success in identifying violations of satellite spectrums. His ruthless approach in exposing spectrum defaulters has earned him the tag of ‘Spectrum Man’