Kolkata, Jan 26 (IANS): Statistician Bimal K. Roy, who has been named for the Padma Shri award - one of India's civilian honours - Monday said it feels "special" to be recognised for his contributions to furthering cryptology in the country.

"It's a special feeling to be named for the Padma awards. It encourages me to continue my dedication to the field of cryptology and teach students. The recognition will be good for the discipline," Roy told IANS, adding it is "unfortunate" that he is the sole recipient of the prestigious honour from West Bengal.

Roy is the director of Indian Statistical Institute (ISI), located in Boranagar, a Kolkata suburb.

Padma awards - the country's civilian honours - are conferred in three categories, namely, Padma Vibhushan, Padma Bhushan and Padma Shri. The highest civilian honour is Bharat Ratna.

Padma Shri is for distinguished service in any field and Roy is named in the category of literature and education.

Roy did his Bachelor of Statistics from the Indian Statistical Institute (ISI) in 1978, and completed his Master's from the same institute in 1979.

He received a Ph.D. in combinatorics and optimization in 1982 from the University of Waterloo. He has served as the director of the ISI since Aug 1, 2010, and was instrumental in introducing a course in cryptology, and heads the Cryptology Research Group (CRG) at ISI.

Roy is engaged in combinatorics and application of statistics in cryptology and design of experiments and is working on information security.

"I am primarily a statistician but for the last 20 years I have been working in cryptology. If you feel the world is becoming more and more unsafe in terms of protecting your information, then we are devising methodologies to ensure safety of your information," Roy explained.