M. Shashidhar Reddy is a third time sitting member of the Andhra Pradesh Legislative Assembly. He was appointed as a Member of the National Disaster Management Authority in September 2005.   This is  the first time that a legislator from any state in the country has been appointed as a member of a national-level body with the rank of Minister of State (MoS) at the centre.

Mr Reddy holds a master’s degree in Agronomy from the Kansas State University, USA(1973). An Indian Council of Agricultural Research‘Merit Scholar’, he graduated from the Andhra Pradesh Agricultural University, Hyderabad, in 1971 with a B.Sc. (Ag) degree.

Shashidhar Reddy was elected as a Member of the Legislative Assembly (MLA) from the Sanathnagar constituency in Hyderabad,  in 1992, 1994, and 2004. He was the minister for environment, science and technology, in the state government of Andhra Pradesh in 1993-94. He was also a member of the official Indian delegation to the second  United Nations Commission on Sustainable Development (UNCSD) in 1994. Mr Reddy has participated in several national and international workshops and seminars, including the International Training Seminar on ’Political Strategies’ at Sintra, Portugal, at the invitation of the Ferdrich Nauman Foundation of Germany, whose target group was newly elected parliamentarians and future leaders.It included a dozen participants – members of parliament from different parts of the world.  

During his political career, Shashidhar Reddy has been one of the most highly respected members of the Congress Party in India. He recently participated in the last Brainstorming Session of the Party (Chintan Shivir) at the highest level in Shimla in 2003. He also headed the ruling Congress Party’s National Task Force on Naxalite Violence in 2004-05, set up in October 2004 by the Congress Party President Mrs Sonia Gandhi, to make an in-depth study of the Naxalite problem in India.   The Task Force submitted its report in April 2005   His effort has been hailed by the Party leadership.

Mr Reddy has been very closely connected with the work relating to relief during the 1990 cyclone that devastated the state of Andhra Pradesh and the US $ 380 million World Bank funded Cyclone Emergency Reconstruction Project (CERP).The project  was conceived ithree weeks after the cyclone, grounded within three months and completed within three years.

He has always espoused issues of public importance and is regarded as an activist, especially on water issues like the utilization of Godavari and Krishna waters and championing the cause of backward and neglected areas and regions and marginalized sections of the society.