Dr. Phatak has a long association with Computer Society of India spanning over two decades. He has regularly been participating in all major CSI events. In CSI 1987, he organized a national programming contest for students. He was program committee chair for Bombay Chapter's annual convention in 1991 and for CSI annual convention in 1993. He has been deeply involved with CSI COMAD conferences for many years. He played an important role in getting the prestigious international conference on Very Large Data Bases (VLDB) to India and was the General Conference Co-chair for the same in 1996. VLDB 96 was resounding success and apart from establishing India's strong position in Data Base activities, it also generated a large sum that has since been endowed by CSI & VLDB for promoting activities in this area. He was given the "Patron of Mumbai Branch" award in 1998 and the CSI Fellowship in December 1999. He has also been elected as a fellow of Institution of Electronic and Telecommunication Engineers (IETE) in March 2000.

He has been a consultant and adviser to many organizations on various issues related to Information Technology. In the financial sector, he has involved in a major effort by Industrial Development Bank of India to use relational data bases on Unix platforms in late 80's. He has been an I.T. adviser to the State Bank of India for several years. He has also been a consultant to several other financial and industrial organizations like Reserve Bank of India, Unit Trust of India, Industrial Credit & Investment Corporation of India, Life Insurance Corporation of India, New India Assurance, Railway Electrical Engineering Institute, Rashtriya Chemicals and Fertilisers, L&T, Times of India, etc. He works on several committees advising Government departments like BSNL, Dept. of IT, Ministry of Communications and Information Technology, Ministry of Non conventional Energy Resources, National Informatic Centre, Maharashtra State Government ( Sales Tax Department, State Police, State Public Health Department, State Transport, Irrigation Department, Municipal Corporation of Greater Mumbai ) on issues related to computerization.