Rajesh Chadha
Rajesh Chadha is a Senior Fellow at CSEP. He has over 50 years of teaching and research experience. He was formerly a Professor and Research Director at the National Council of Applied Economic Research (NCAER) and, before that, an Associate Professor of Economics at Hindu College, University of Delhi. Dr Chadha has worked extensively on the issues of international trade, FDI, and non-fuel minerals and mining in India. He has been a visiting scholar at the Universities of Michigan, Melbourne, and Monash and a visiting faculty member at many prestigious academic and research institutes in India. Dr Chadha was nominated as GTAP Research Fellow (2004-2007) by the Global Trade Analysis Project (GTAP), Purdue University. His recent work encompasses assessing the criticality of minerals and projecting their needs for green technologies and the CSEP Collaborative on Indian Regional Economic Modelling (CIREM). Dr Chadha received his PhD in Economics from the Indian Institute of Technology, New Delhi.
Papers
- Unlocking India’s Mineral Potential: Bridging the Gap Between Challenges and Ambitions (Discussion Paper, co-authored with Ganesh Sivamani, CSEP, March 2026)
- Carbon Taxes in India: Balancing Growth, Equity, and the Net-Zero Transition (Technical Paper, co-authored with Ganesh Sivamani & Rajat Verma, CSEP, September 2025)
- The India Copper Report: Navigating Through the Demand and Supply Gap (Report, co-authored with Tanima Pal, CSEP, August 2025)
- Critical Mineral Supply Chains: Challenges for India (Working Paper, co-authored with Karthik Bansal, CSEP, February 2025)
- Projecting Critical Minerals Need for India’s Energy Transition: How Much of Which Minerals are Needed for the Transition? (Working Paper, co-authored with Ganesh Sivamani, CSEP, June, 2024)
- Developing an Environmentally-extended Social Accounting Matrix for India 2019-20 (Technical Paper, co-authored with Ganesh Sivamani & Rajat Verma, CSEP, November, 2023)
- CSEP Sustainable Mining Attractiveness Index (SMAI) (Working Paper, co-authored with Ishita Kapoor, Ganesh Sivamani & Karthik Bansal, CSEP, October 2023)
- Incentivising Non-Fuel Mineral Exploration in India (Discussion Note, co-authored with Ganesh Sivamani and Karthik Bansal, CSEP, June, 2023)
- Critical Minerals for India 2023 (Working Paper, co-authored with Ganesh Sivamani and Karthik Bansal, CSEP, April, 2023)
- Critical Minerals for India: Assessing their Criticality and Projecting their Needs for Green Technologies (Policy Brief, co-authored with Ganesh Sivamani, CSEP, October, 2022)
- Critical Minerals for India: Assessing their Criticality and Projecting their Needs for Green Technologies (Working Paper, co-authored with Ganesh Sivamani, CSEP, September, 2022)
- Mineral Royalty Rates: A Policy Review (Discussion Note, co-authored with Ishita Kapoor, CSEP, August, 2022)
- Non-fuel Minerals and Metals: India’s Trade and FDI Scenario (Discussion Note, co-authored with Ishita Kapoor, CSEP, June, 2022)
- A Hybrid Energy Input-Output Table for India (Working Paper, co-authored with Ganesh Sivamani, CSEP, May, 2022)
- District Mineral Foundation Funds: Evaluating the Performance (Discussion Note, co-authored with Ishita Kapoor, CSEP, January, 2022)
- Prospective Mining Conflicts: Adopt Sustainable Development (Discussion Note, co-authored with Ishita Kapoor, CSEP, December, 2021)
- Critical Minerals in India: Assessing their Criticality and Projecting their Needs for Green Technologies (Working Paper, co-authored with Ganesh Sivamani, CSEP, December, 2021)
- Energy Flows through Production and Consumption Structure of India’s Economy (Technical Note, co-authored with Ganesh Sivamani, CSEP, November, 2021)
- Assessing the Criticality of Non-Fuel Minerals in India (Discussion Note, co-authored with Ganesh Sivamani, CSEP, September, 2021)
- Non-fuel Mineral Auctions: How Fair is the Game, and For Whom? (Working Paper, co-authored with Ganesh Sivamani, CSEP, August, 2021)
- CSEP sustainable mining attractiveness Index: District-level study of Jharkhand (Working paper, co-authored with Ishita Kapoor & Ganesh Sivamani, CSEP, April, 2021)
- Input Output Transactions Table: Odisha 2015-16 (Working paper, co-authored with M.R Saluja & Ganesh Sivamani, CSEP, September, 2020)
- Reforms in the mining sector: Comments and recommendations (Blog, co-authored with Ganesh Sivamani, CSEP, September, 2020)
- India needs to strengthen, not dilute, environmental assessments (Blog, co-authored with Ganesh Sivamani, CSEP, September, 2020)
- “Enhancing mineral exploration in India” (Report, co-authored with Biplob Chatterjee, Brookings India, April 19, 2020)
- “Skewed critical minerals global supply chains post COVID-19” (Report, Brookings India, June 10, 2020)
- “Fractured Global Value Chains post COVID-19: Can India gain its missed glory?” (Upfront, Brookings India, May 11, 2020)
- “Input-Output Transactions Table: India 2015-16” (Discussion Note, co-authored with M. R. Saluja and Ganesh Sivamani, Brookings India, January 2020)
- “Non-Fuel Minerals and Mining in India: Background and the way forward” (Discussion Note, co-authored with Ganesh Sivamani, Brookings India, Jan 7, 2020)
Past Positions
- September 2019 – March 2021: Program Director, Natural Resources, Brookings India/Centre for Social and Economic Progress (CSEP)
- November 2018-August 2019: Professor and Research Director, NCAER
- August 2014-October 2018: Senior Research Counsellor, NCAER
- September 2004-July 2014: Senior Fellow, NCAER
- 28 years at the University of Delhi (1976-2004) including 20 years in Economics Department, Hindu College (1984 to 2004)
- Visiting Faculty: IIT Delhi, IIT Roorkee, IEG Delhi, IIFT Delhi, IIPA Delhi and AIMA Delhi.
- Visiting Scholar at University of Michigan (Ann Arbor) and the Universities of Melbourne, Monash, La Trobe and Victoria (Melbourne).
- GTAP Research Fellow: Nominated for 2004-2007 by the Purdue University, West Lafayette.
Education
- PhD in Economics from the Indian Institute of Technology (IIT), Delhi, 1984
- MA Business Economics, University of Delhi, 1976
- BSc Honours in Physics, University of Delhi, 1974
The Centre for Social and Economic Progress (CSEP) is an independent, public policy think tank with a mandate to conduct research and analysis on critical issues facing India and the world and help shape policies that advance sustainable growth and development.