Dr. Bhawalkar has received many awards in his career, the important ones being  Padma Shri , one of the highesr civilian awards of India, conferred by President of India in the year 2000, S.S.Bhatnagar Award for Engineering Sciences in 1984, Firodia Award for excellence in Science and Technology in 2000  and many more..

After obtaining MSc in physics from Sagar University in 1961, Dr. Dilip Bhawalkar joined University of Southampton to do MSc in Electronics and later PhD in Lasers. He completed his PhD in lasers in 1966 and was invited to join the Electronics Department of Southampton University as a lecturer to teach a post graduate course on lasers, the first of its kind in England.

He was offered a position at Bhabha Atomic Research Centre and joined there  in Dec 1967 to lead a small laser programme . Under his leadership, the laser programme expanded rapidly. The focus of the programme was to develop various lasers and explore their applications. He and his team developed ruby lasers, Nd: YG and NdGlass  lasers, He Ne laser, Carbon Di Oxide lasers, nitrogen lasers, dye lasers etc. In addition his team developed laser rangefinder for ,  laser photocoagulator,  surgical carbon di oxide laser and many more. In 1982 he developed a high power Nd:glass laser chain capable of giving a peak power of 10,000 MWs.

In 1987 he  was appointed the first director of the newly founded R&D laboratory of Department of Atomic Energy, The Centre for Advanced Technology at Indore.  At CAT he initiated major programmes in particle accelerators and lasers.   The focus of the laser programme was to develop well engineered lasers and laser based instruments for industry, medicine and R&D. The lasers and instruments developed include industrial Nd:YAG laser, carbon di oxide lasers of various types for R&D ,industrial and medical applications, copper vapour lasers and dye lasers for R&D etc. The instruments and systems  developed included laser fluorimeters,  laser micrometers, laser land levellers,  laser welding and cutting  stations for nuclear programmes as well as for industry and many more.

He also established a Prototype Production Unit to manufacture and supply lasers and laser based systems to industry and R&D labs. This unit supplied more than 75 lasers and  laser based system to industries, and R&D labs.

He retired as Distinguished Scientist and Director of C.A.T. on 31^st Oct 2003. He is currently Distinguished Honorary Professor at I.I.T. (Kanpur).

Dr.Bhawalkar has published nearly 80 papers in international journals and has 1 patent. He has guided 16 PhD students.

Dr. Bhawalkar  was instrumental in evolving a National Laser Programme in which Dept of Atomic Energy and Dept and Science and Technology participated. Under this programme laser research grew rapidly in India.

Dr. Bhawalkar was involved in several international scientific cooperation programmes. He was coordinator for the collaboration between DAE and CERN ( European Centre for Nuclear Research). He was the coordinator for the cooperation programme between India and Russia for lasers and accelerators. He was Chairman of Asian Committee for Future Accelerators.  He was a member of the C 13 Committee of International Union of Pure and Applied Physics. He was chairman of the Advanced Technology Committee of Board of Research in Nuclear Sciences of D.A.E. and of the Programme Advisory Committee of D.S.T.

Dr. Bhawalkar has been elected Fellow of The Optical Society of America, The Russian Academy for Natural Sciences, Indian National Science Academy,  Indian Academy of Sciences and  National Academy of Sciences. He is also a Fellow of Indian Laser association, Optical Society of India and Member of Indian Physics Association.