About
Amarjeet Sinha has a life-time commitment to work for transforming lives and livelihoods of the deprived households through human well-being. He is a Senior Fellow at the Centre for Social and Economic Progress. From 2022-2024, Amarjeet served as Member Public Enterprises Selection Board. He was earlier posted as Advisor to the Prime Minister till July 31, 2021, looking after the social sector and rural initiatives. 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 sector. He has had the unique distinction of having played a major role in designing the Sarva Siksha Abhiyan (India’s main programme for universal education), the National Rural Health Mission, 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 the Gram Swaraj Abhiyan in 2018 to reach seven pro-poor public welfare interventions (LPG, electricity, Bank Account, life and accident insurance, LED Bulbs, and Immunization) 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. He also leads the work on a Public Report on Secondary Education (PROSE) in education for improving learning outcomes, with the Centre for Social and Economic Progress.
At the State level, Amarjeet 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 95% of India’s districts to promote human development initiatives.
Sinha has published eight books on public policy and many articles. His first book was the Public Report on Basic Education (PROBE) in 1999, as one of the eight authors. The Report was highly impactful. He published “An India for Everyone – A Path to Inclusive Development”, a Harper Collins paperback, in 2013. A Hindi translation of the book, “Hum Sab ka Bharat”, is also available. His latest book, “The Last Mile – Turning Public Policy Upside Down”, was published by Routledge, UK and released on October 26, 2023. The Hindi translation, “Akhiri Meel – Lok Niti ki Asli Chunauti” (Prabhat Prakashan) was also launched simultaneously. He has recently contributed to the Notion Press Book on fifteen Change Makers, The Book of Aspiration. Amarjeet has written over one hundred op-eds for all the leading Indian dailies on issues of human well-being, community connect, decentralization, and a more inclusive India. He is the Chairman of the Advisory Group and one of the Series Editor of a Public Policy series on Human Development comprising six volumes on Improving Learning Outcomes in Schools, Health Care for All, Improving Outcomes in Nutrition, Livelihoods and Skills, Climate Action and Justice, and Institutional Challenges in Human Development.
Amarjeet has taught and lectured in many Public Policy Schools in India. He teaches a course on Rural Development and Policy design and policy implementation at the Advanced Masters programme for Public Policy (AMPPP), the flagship public policy course of the Indian School of Business. He also runs a Public Policy in Practice Course for the Institute of Rural Management, Anand. 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 is a Member of the Jury for The Indian Express Governance Awards. He chaired a committee for suggesting reforms in the MGNREGS, which submitted its report on June 4, 2023. Amarjeet chairs the Gender Expert Committee of the Reserve Bank Innovation Hub. He is also on the Board of Indian Institute of Health Management and Research, New Delhi, HelpAge India, and the Centre for Studying Developing Societies (CSDS).
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.
