Amarjeet Sinha
Senior Fellow
Amarjeet Sinha will guide CSEP’s research in Education and Social Development, pro bono, as a Senior Fellow.
Mr Sinha was earlier posted as Advisor to the Prime Minister till July 31, 2021. An Indian Administrative Service (IAS) Officer of the Bihar Cadre of the 1983 batch, he retired in December 2019 as Secretary, Department of Rural Development, Government of India. He has 40 years of experience in Government, largely in the rural and social sectors. He has had the unique distinction of having played a major role in designing Sarva Siksha Abhiyan (India’s main programme for universal education), the National Rural Health Mission, and in bringing about governance reforms in programmes for rural areas covering livelihoods, employment, housing, social security, skills, urban development, and road construction. He also coordinated successfully the work of Gram Swaraj Abhiyan in 2018 to reach seven pro-poor public welfare interventions (LPG, electricity, Bank Account, life and accident insurance, LED Bulbs, and Immunisation) to 63,974 large villages with over 50% vulnerable social group population. Multi-Dimensional Poverty and its Reduction, Public Policy and Public Management are areas of his work.
At the state level, Mr Sinha served in the education and health sectors. He has also had the opportunity to serve in the remote tribal district of Singhbhum in present-day Jharkhand and in the Naxalite-affected Jehanabad district of Bihar.
He has also been training Indian Administrative Service Officer Trainees at the Lal Bahadur Shastri National Academy of Administration, Mussoorie on the social sector for the last 30 years. He has the distinction of having travelled to over 90% of India’s districts to promote human development initiatives.
Mr Sinha has published seven books on public policy and a large number of articles in publications such as Lancet, Economic and Political Weekly, Economic Times, The Hindu, The Indian Express, The Times of India, The Business Standard, The Hindustan Times, etc. His recently released book, The Last Mile – Turning Public Policy Upside Down, was published by Routledge, UK and was released on October 26, 2023. He has recently contributed to the Notion Press Book on fifteen Change Makers, The Book of Aspiration.
Mr Sinha has been associated with Public Policy at Azim Premji University, ISB, ISPP, Kautilya School of Public Policy, etc. He delivered the ICSSR Annual Lecture 2022 on Bridging the Last Mile in Pro-Poor Public Welfare. He is also an Advisor to Sampark Foundation for frugal innovations on scale in education, on Health and Human Development with the Centre for Social and Economic Progress, and with Women’s World Bank on Making Finance Work for Women. He was a Member of the Jury for The Indian Express Governance Awards in 2023. He Chaired a Committee for suggesting reforms in the MGNREGS, which submitted its report on June 4, 2023. Mr Sinha Chairs the Gender Expert Committee of the Reserve Bank Innovation Hub.
A student of St. Stephen’s College, he topped the Delhi University and is a recipient of the National Talent Scholarship, the Rhodes Scholarship and the Oxford Cambridge Society of India Scholarship. He has also been the President of the St. Stephen’s College Students’ Union Society.
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.