Santosh Mehrotra Explained

Santosh K. Mehrotra
Birth Date:1955 7, df=yes
Birth Place:Lucknow, UP, India)
Nationality:Indian
Field:Human development, economist
Institution:Jawaharlal Nehru University, Delhi, India
Alma Mater:Cambridge University
The New School (New York City)
Jawaharlal Nehru University
Allahabad University
La Martiniere College
Contributions:human development economist
Website:https://santoshmehrotraeco0

Santosh Mehrotra (Lucknow, U.P. India, 30 July 1955) is a development economist, whose research and writings have had most influence in the areas of labour, employment, skill development, on the relationship between human development and economic growth, child poverty, and the economics of education. He was an economic adviser in the United Nations system in New York City, Italy, and Thailand (1991–2006), and technocrat in the government of India (2006–2014), apart from making contributions to academic research since the mid-1980s. He has also in recent years established a reputation as an institution-builder in the field of research in India, despite facing difficult odds. He brings a combination of professional experience: with the Indian government as a policy maker and adviser, with international organisations as a technical expert, having lived on three continents and travelled to 63 countries providing technical advice to governments; and as an academic whose research work has been translated into French, Spanish, Portuguese, Italian and German.

He is married to Sushma Kapoor,[1] who was the Deputy Regional Director, UNWOMEN, South Asia, and has a daughter, Pia Sukanya, who is a singer, music-maker, actress and film director.[2]

Early life and education

Mehrotra was the son of an officer of the Indian Administrative Service. He had most of his early education in schools in Lucknow, including the historic La Martiniere College. He finished his schooling in Allahabad, the university town. His mother, herself a poet in Hindi, from Allahabad, had grown up surrounded by stories of the nationalist movement against the British, and both parents imbued him with a deep sense of nationalism. She was the daughter of a distinguished lawyer, who was Mayor of Allahabad. Her father, KP Kakkar had defeated Motilal Nehru, the father of India's first Prime Minister, Jawaharlal Nehru, in the city elections to the Mayor-ship in 1922.

After Mehrotra graduated from Allahabad University, his father expected him to join the Indian Administrative Service. However, he wanted to become an academic and won two fellowships to study abroad, first to obtain a master's degree in Economics at The New School for Social Research, New York city. Here he was taught by well-known economists, like Edward J. Nell, Robert Heilbroner, Ross Thomson, and Gita Sen. Mehrotra then moved to Cambridge University to do a PhD in Economics.

Professional life

Finishing the PhD in 1985 he returned to India to a life in academia. In 1988 he became associate professor, School of International Studies, Jawaharlal Nehru University, New Delhi.

In 1991, Mehrotra was called away to the United Nations system in New York. From 1991 to 2006, he spent 15 years with two UN agencies – UNICEF[3] and UNDP. In the latter, he was the chief economist of the global Human Development Report (2002–05), New York. Before that he led the research programme on developing countries at UNICEF's global research institute, the Innocenti Research Center, Florence, Italy (1999–2002).

After an international career, he left the UN to return to India in September 2006 to head the Rural Development Division of Planning Commission (India), where he was also the Economic Adviser for the Social Sectors. He then headed Development Policy Division, Planning Commission (till August 2009).[4]

He was Director-General, National Institute of Labour Economics Research (earlier called Institute of Applied Manpower Research[5]), Planning Commission (in the rank of Secretary, Government of India)[6] until August 2014.

He also held a three-year appointment as Parkin Visiting Professor at the Centre for International Development in the Faculty of Social Sciences, at the University of Bath,[7] UK (2010–13).

Mehrotra was till mid 2020 Professor of Economics, Centre for Informal Sector and Labour Studies, Jawaharlal Nehru University,[8]

Santosh Mehrotra is currently visiting professor, at the Centre for Development studies, University of Bath, UK.

Contributions

He was a lead author of several chapters in India's 11th Five Year Plan (Five-Year Plans of India) (2007–2012). For the 11th Plan, he led the team that authored several chapters related to watershed development; land reforms; and food security and nutrition. Later, for the 12th Five Year Plan (2012–17) he led the team that wrote the chapters on Employment and on Skill Development.[9] He was also the Team Leader of the second-ever national Human Development Report of India.[10]

In early 2011 he led the drafting of a National Vocational Education Qualification Framework for India, which is the basis of skill development now being implemented by the Government of India generally, and especially the Ministry of Human Resource Development.[11] The NVEQF (now called the National Skills Qualification Framework)[12] [13] is the basis of vocational education being introduced in class 9 in India, enabling 15-year-old children in schools in India to access vocational education. This was a change for India's school children, as millions of them drop out after completing 8 years of compulsory schooling. Currently he is a member of the National Steering Committee of National Skills Qualification Framework, MHRD

As Member-Secretary of the Expert Group on 'Development Challenges in Extremist-Affected Areas', he steered a landmark report to the Planning Commission, which became the basis of several policy initiatives by the Planning Commission for rural areas that are Maoist-affected districts.[14]

He was a member of the NC Saxena Committee on 'Criteria to Identify the Poor', and a member of its Drafting Committee.[15] He co-authored the research paper that became the basis of the methodology now adopted by the government of India in the Socio-Economic Census over 2011–2013 to identify the poor conducted.

He was also a member of the Expert Group of government of India to revamp the self-help groups based programme, SGSY (Swarnajayanti Gram Swarozgar Yojana), and convert it into the National Rural Livelihood Mission. NRLM has been taken to scale all over India, as a much improved programme to promote women's self-help groups.

He was a member of the inter-ministerial Expert Group that designed the first major Conditional Cash Transfer for the Govt of India (Ministry of Women and Child Development), giving cash transfers to pregnant and lactating mothers, 2009.

He was the only Indian economist on the international review panel of the International Initiative for Impact Evaluation 2009–10.[16] He was a member of the World Bank's High Level Advisory Panel, Washington, DC, in 2011 to advise IDA/World Bank on criteria for selecting projects for conducting Impact Evaluations. For the World Bank he was invited by its Independent Evaluation Group prepare a paper on the state of evaluation in India.[17]

Mehrotra writes regularly for a number of English[18] and Hindi language newspapers on these issues.[19] He also appears regularly on Indian and international TV channels[20] as a poverty specialist and human development economist.[21]

Controversies

When in 2013 the data suggested that despite the fastest economic growth in the history of independent India, the growth was 'jobless', with manufacturing employment actually falling in absolute terms, he had no hesitation in so averring, despite heading a Planning Commission-funded research institute. Mehrotra was repeatedly interviewed by TV channels, and demonstrated that there had been jobless growth.[22] [23]

Mehrotra has also shown through his research that the government commitment to skilling 500 million people between 2012 and 2022 is based on an incorrect estimate, and the government's instruction to its ministries to plan skill development capacity accordingly risks wasting resources. He showed that the numbers to be skilled over 10 years was only about 200 million, a daunting enough task.[24]

Awards and fellowships

National advisory boards

He has been on a large number of advisory boards in India since 2006:

International advisory boards

Books and publications

He has written or edited eleven books, which are taught in universities around the world:

Research articles

Many other research articles can be found on this web page.

Notes and References

  1. Web site: United Nations Development Fund for Women (UNIFEM). unwomen-eseasia.org.
  2. Web site: Pia Sukanya. Twitter.
  3. Web site: Archived copy . 13 March 2015 . 4 March 2016 . https://web.archive.org/web/20160304063410/http://www.unicef.org/eapro/Santosh_Bio.pdf .
  4. Web site: Santosh Mehrotra. crop.org.
  5. Web site: IAMR. iamrindia.gov.in.
  6. http://planningcommission.gov.in/rti/doc_rti/off_order.pdf Planning Commission document
  7. Web site: David Parkin Visiting Professorship 2012/13. bath.ac.uk.
  8. Web site: Show Profile . 18 February 2015 . 26 April 2015 . https://web.archive.org/web/20150426053026/http://www.jnu.ac.in/FacultyStaff/ShowProfile.asp?SendUserName=skmehrotra .
  9. http://planningcommission.gov.in/aboutus/committee/wrkgrp12/wg_emp_planing.pdf Planning Commission document
  10. Web site: Untitled Page. iamrindia.gov.in.
  11. Web site: Print Release. pib.nic.in.
  12. Web site: Haryana State Government Directorate of School Education along with Wadhwani Foundation unveils pilot for the National Vocational Educational Qualification Framework (NVEQF) programme. lotsbuzz.com.
  13. http://mhrd.gov.in/sites/upload_files/mhrd/files/EXECUTIVE%20ORDER_new.pdf Executive order
  14. http://planningcommission.gov.in/reports/publications/rep_dce.pdf Planning Commission document
  15. Web site: PRSIndia. 10 June 2023.
  16. Web site: Archived copy . 19 February 2015 . 26 October 2015 . https://web.archive.org/web/20151026025624/http://www.3ieimpact.org/media/filer_public/2013/10/22/updated_agenda_1.pdf .
  17. https://openknowledge.worldbank.org/bitstream/handle/10986/19000/884180NWP0Box300ecd0wp280india0me00.pdf?sequence=1 Evaluation Capacity Development
  18. Web site: A fuel's errand. 4 February 2015. The Indian Express.
  19. News: 'Jobless growth' no more. The Hindu. 17 April 2014. Mehrotra. Santosh.
  20. Web site: Dr. Santosh Mehrotra, Director General IAMR in MEDIA. iamrindia.gov.in.
  21. Web site: Santosh Mehrotra Policies to Achieve Inclusive Growth in India: Seizing the Demographic Dividend. 19 December 2013. YouTube.
  22. Web site: Error- National Institute of Labour Economics Research and Development (Formerly Institute of Applied Manpower Research), an Autonomous Institute under NITI Aayog, Government of India.
  23. Web site: Jobless growth is now official – The Smart Investor. Business Standard.
  24. Web site: Estimating India's Skill Gap on a Realistic Basis for 2022. epw.in.
  25. Web site: Comparative Research Programme on Poverty. sourcewatch.org.
  26. Web site: The Rockefeller Foundation. rockefellerfoundation.org.
  27. Web site: Santosh K. Mehrotra. rockefellerfoundation.org.
  28. Web site: Error- National Institute of Labour Economics Research and Development (Formerly Institute of Applied Manpower Research), an Autonomous Institute under NITI Aayog, Government of India.
  29. Web site: International Advisory Board – Young Lives. younglives.org.uk. https://web.archive.org/web/20120705034934/http://www.younglives.org.uk/who-we-are/international-advisory-board. 5 July 2012.
  30. http://hdr.undp.org/sites/default/files/reports/264/hdr_2003_en_complete.pdf Human Development Report
  31. Web site: Edit user – Intranet PEP Research Network. pep-net.org.
  32. Web site: SAGE: Countering Naxalism with Development: Challenges of Social Justice and State Security: Santosh Mehrotra: 9788132113935. SAGE. 20 September 2021.
  33. Web site: Land Policies for Equity and Growth: Transforming the Agrarian Structure in Uttar Pradesh. Santosh Mehrotra, Ajit Kumar Singh. alibris.com.
  34. Book: India's Skills Challenge. oup.com. 30 December 2014. Oxford University Press. 978-0-19-945277-4.
  35. Web site: India's Skills Challenge: Reforming Vocational Education and Training to Harness the Demographic Div – Economics – Development-Economics. oup.co.in.
  36. Web site: Eliminating Human Poverty: Macroeconomic and Social Policies for Equitable Growth, Mehrotra, Delamonica . 19 February 2015 . 8 June 2015 . https://web.archive.org/web/20150608023058/http://press.uchicago.edu/ucp/books/book/distributed/E/bo20848966.html .
  37. Web site: Cambridge University Press India. cambridgeindia.org.
  38. Web site: SAGE: The Economics of Elementary Education in India: The Challenge of Public Finance, Private Provision and Household Costs: Santosh Mehrotra: 9780761934196. SAGE. 19 September 2021.
  39. Web site: Le Developpement a Visage Humain: La Voie Qui Mene Au Developpement Social Et La Croissance economique. Et, Mehrotra S.. alibris.com.
  40. Web site: Development with a Human Face: Experiences in Social Achievement and Economic Growth – UNICEF Publications – UNICEF. 28 April 2003. UNICEF.
  41. Book: Development with a Human Face. oup.com. 20 July 2000. Oxford University Press. 978-0-19-829657-7.
  42. Book: India and the Soviet Union. cambridge.org. 1991. 10.1017/CBO9780511559884. Mehrotra. Santosh K.. 978-0-521-36202-3.
  43. Web site: Explaining Employment Trends in the Indian Economy: 1993–94 to 2011–12. epw.in.
  44. Web site: International Experience with National Training Funds. epw.in.
  45. Web site: The Reformed 'Planning Commission'. epw.in.
  46. http://www.unicef-irc.org/publications/pdf/iwp97.pdf Innocenti Working Paper

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