Sanjeev Chopra

Bio

Dr Chopra holds a PhD in Management, besides degrees in Law, History and Literature. He is the recipient of the Robert S McNamara Fellowship of the World Bank and the Hubert H Humphrey Fellowship at the University of Cornell. He was also a Guest Scholar at The Brookings Institution, Washington DC and attended the Twenty First Century Trust Fellows Program at Merton College, Oxford. He has written extensively on policy issues in governance and development interventions in rural development, agriculture, marketing reforms, co-operatives, and farmer organizations. He has been invited to deliver lectures and talks at IIMs, ASCI, FRI, IGNFA and at symposia and conferences across the country. He has also delivered keynotes at International Cooperative Alliance
conferences at Beijing, Abu Dhabi, and Ho Chi Minh City.

He has several books to his credit, including ‘At the Crossroads: Development Discourses in India’, ‘Agri-Matters’, ‘Ten Thousand Crores’, besides three edited volumes on Policy Colloquia on Co- operatives in the SAARC Region, and articles in leading publications like The Print, India First , Times of India, Huffington Post , Economic Times, Financial Express, Millennium Post, Fair Observer, Garhwal Post etal.

He was a member of the IAS from 1985 to 2021. He has served as the District Magistrate of Murshidabad, CEO of Himul , and Siliguri Jalpaiguri Development Authority (SJDA), ADM of Cooch Behar and SDO at Ghatal, West Midnapore district and Kalimpong in Darjeeling, where he was also posted as Assistant Magistrate for training. From 2002-2007, he served the Government of
Uttarakhand as the Secretary to the Industrial Development and Information Technology Departments. From 2007-2010, he was Principal Secretary to the Government of West Bengal in the Agriculture, Food Processing and Horticulture Departments. From 2010-2015 he was the Mission Director for the National Horticulture Mission and the National Mission on Micro Irrigation and Managing Director of the NAFED and National Horticulture Board, besides looking after International Cooperation in the Ministry of Agriculture, Government of India. Till 31st December 2019, he was the Additional Chief Secretary to the Government of West Bengal in the Departments of Industry, Commerce & Enterprises, as well as the Director General of the Administrative Training
Institute, Kolkata.

Dr. Chopra served the Lal Bahadur Shastri National Academy of Administration, Mussoorie as its Director w.e.f. 1st January 2019 to 31st March 2021. Post his superannuation, he has written a book We the People of the States of Bharat : the making and remaking of Internal boundaries of India . This was published by Harper Collins in October 2022.

He curates a Literature and Arts festival, ‘Valley of Words’ at Dehradun in November every year.