IAS (95,UP), IIT Kanpur, Harvard Kennedy School
Amod is an Indian Administrative Service officer with M.Tech and B.Tech from Indian Institute of Technology (IIT), Kanpur and MPA from Harvard Kennedy School. He was the youngest recipient of Prime Minister's Award for excellence in public administration in 2008. India Today (July 2010) and Forbes (August 2012) have featured him as a promising young leader of India. He has 25 years of administrative experience in Uttar Pradesh, the biggest state in India with a population of about 240 million. He has contributed significantly in the fields of Public Policy, e-Governance, Grievance Redressal, Education, Health and Family Welfare, having also received a special mention for his e-Governance project at the Stockholm Challenge award. He was ranked 5th in India in the Civil Services (IAS) Exam. He has also received the United Nations Public Service Award, Golden Icon award and the e-Governance Champion Award besides many other awards. Amod serves on Scientific Advisory Committee (SAC) of Harvard School of Public Health for Betterbirth trial of WHO checklist for safe delivery.
Amod has a unique career profile and background. Having analytical skills of a technocrat, he has acquired administrative and managerial skills of a senior manager by rigorous training and international exposure. Having visited about 50 countries and hundreds of villages in his field postings, he has first hand understanding and feel of rural markets, which hold the key to India's future growth.
Having worked directly with two Chief Ministers, he understands the role of politics in governance. Working in USAID and BMGF funded projects has given him an understanding of externally funded projects.
- Public Policy, e-Governance, Grievance Redressal, Health & Family Welfare, Education
- Deep understanding of rural mindset and psychology
- Ability to work seamlessly with senior politicians and bureaucrats
- Strong networking skills in IIT, IIM, IAS, Harvard Alumni
- IITians are considered to be amongst the best brains in the world.
- Large global network, among IAS (30-40% IAS in 1980-2000 batches came from IITs), in ICT industry and in Corporate world
- Analytical skills, professional, no-nonsense approach to work
- This helps in getting access to honest and credible feedback about any best practice in India. Any time, he can get the best practitioner from anywhere in India as guest lecturer/trainer to mentor and guide the scale up.
- It also helps in quick and easy dissemination of our work to other parts of the country.
- Amongst IAS toppers, 5th rank in India
- Strong network with batchmates, juniors and senior bureaucrats in every state of India (a good no. of Civil Servants serving in different states hail from UP& Bihar. They generally remain in touch with UP, Bihar IAS officers for personal reasons).
- This helps in getting access to honest and credible feedback about any best practice in India. Any time, he can get the best practitioner from anywhere in India as guest lecturer/trainer to mentor and guide the scale up.
- It also helps in quick and easy dissemination of our work to other parts of the country.
- Network in international bodies like UN,WB,WHO.
- MPA from Harvard Kennedy School (HKS) as a Mason Fellow, which is the most prestigious program of HKS
- Around 20 heads of state across the globe are alumni of HKS, apart from senior leaders in all fields
- Member of a global network of friends in senior positions in about 70 countries.
- Perhaps the only officer to have worked so closely with two CMs belonging to opposite parties.
- Fully understands the link between politics and governance
- Strong political networking in major political parties of India
- Excellent first hand feel/knowledge of govt. functioning/processes/decision making at the highest level
- Within a span of 5 years, He saw the government from the lowest level to the highest level, making him aware of the disconnect which exists in India between policy and implementation.
- As AED, SIFPSA, he has worked closely with USAID and other donor agencies
- Worked with BMGF as Adviser and also as Project Director of MNH project
- Closely monitored the work and coordinated with UNICEF, UNDP, World Bank
- Good networking with key partners working in development sector
- Good understanding of the working, strengths and weaknesses of these agencies and their people.
- Widely travelled in about 50 countries
- Studied and lived in USA and Japan for about a year in each country
- Participated in multiple international conferences/workshops
- An excellent understanding of social and cultural contexts enabling a global perspective of development challenges.
- His basic schooling has been in a government primary school in a village
- Studied in a charitable institution till class 10th
- He has worked in different remote locations during initial 8-10 years of his service.
- All close relatives are farmers or at most fourth-class government servants
- Has seen cases of infant, neonatal, U5 mortality, still birth and high fertility in immediate family
- Basic feel/understanding of rural Indian realities (not acquired by reading or visiting but by solid firsthand experience), which is rare to find in any person working at this level.
- Committed and passionate about giving back to the society/country whatever it has given him
- Good understanding of what works in field and how govt. machinery functions at lower level.
- Youngest in the batch at IIT Kanpur. An IIT BTech before reaching 20 years of age
- 5th in India in IAS in 1995
- Won many national and international awards for innovations in government functioning
- Youngest recipient of PM award (the highest award for a civil servant in India) in 2008
- Covered by all major newspapers/magazines/channels in India (India Today, Forbes, TOI, Indian Express etc.)
- A regular guest speaker at LBSNAA, IIM Lucknow and other prestigious institutions.
- Led several path breaking and challenging initiatives with focus on systemic changes to deliver public goods.
- Out of box innovative thinking helps in coming out with simple, practical ideas
- Highly respected and regarded in bureaucratic circles.
- This recognition gives immense confidence to try out new things without any fear of failure.
- It is rare to find an individual with a combination of all the above skills.
- A multi-faceted leader who can easily steer through the challenges of government functioning across the country both at national and state level.
Citizen Centric Projects
Lokvani Initiated in 2004, it was the first of its kind pioneering experiment in the country..
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Initiated in 2004, it was the first of its kind pioneering experiment in the country where two innovations, Public Private Partnership (PPP) based kiosks in rural areas for providing G2C services and Online Grievance Redressal were successfully and coherently implemented together. Government of India representatives including then Secretary IT, GOI Sri Brijesh Kumar and other officers from ILFS visited Sitapur to understand the practical aspects of the experiment with a vision of scaling it up at national level. Later on, the Common Service Centre (CSC) scheme rolled out by GOI was based primarily on learnings from Lokvani (apart from similar experiments in other parts of the country). Presently, there are about 4 lakhs CSCs in India providing G2C & B2C services online to the citizens.
Jansunwai (Integrated Grievance Redressal System): Online grievance redressal system..
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Online grievance redressal system for general public, initially conceptualized as part of Lokvani, was later up scaled into a full-fledged IGRS (Integrated Grievance Redressal System) of UP called Jansunwai, under my leadership. Later on, CM helpline 1076 was added to this portal. So far, more than 10 million (1 Crore) grievances have been handled by this system and Hon’ble CM personally reviews this regularly.
IVRS based Mid-Day-Meal Daily Monitoring System When I was Director Mid-Day-Meal..
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When I was Director Mid-Day-Meal (MDM) in UP just for six months, I conceived, designed and implemented IVRS call-based monitoring of mid-day meal scheme in UP. This not only brought down the number of schools not serving meals from 35% to 5%, but also saved about INR 300 Crores (~USD 50 million) annually in conversion cost. Even after 10 years of my departure, this system still runs efficiently in UP. GOI has implemented it now in the whole country.
UP 100 (now UP 112) The project was conceived by me and later on was implemented..
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The project was conceived by me and later on was implemented through an advisor especially hired for this purpose. Today, it is the largest PSAP (Public Safety Answering Point) in the world with a fleet of 4,500 vehicles managed by one centralized call center. It attends to roughly 80,000 calls and 16,000 police emergencies every day and its response time is even better than 108/102 in UP.
UP Government Orders (GO) Online Learning from Andhra Pradesh, I started..
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Learning from Andhra Pradesh, I started and monitored this scheme in which important GOs are only issued online and need to be available online for public viewing otherwise they would be considered invalid and unofficial. So far there have been 24 million (2.40 crores) downloads and views of GOs using the application.
Online age, caste, domicile certificates My team started it as “also online”..
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My team started it as “also online” service in addition to manual issuance of these certificates. But later on, I pleaded and insisted with the political leadership to make it “Only online”. The service runs smoothly and till date more than 200 million (20 Crores) certificates have been issued online.
Launch of 108 and 102 ambulance service in UP I played a critical role..
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I played a critical role in resolving the court cases and getting these critical ambulance services launched in Uttar Pradesh. I applied myself to create the necessary political and health system coherence and willingness resulting in a smooth state-wide roll-out of the two services in a timely manner.
Launch of 1090 Women helpline This is a unique women helpline..
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This is a unique women helpline which was conceived, designed and implemented by an IPS officer, in which the complainant woman’s identity is kept secret. I contributed by providing the backend support in getting the number, budget, office venue besides further supplementing the original idea with my experiential learnings. So far about 1.7 million (17 lakh) women in UP have used this helpline in distress and while also reporting the quality of help provided by the helpline as satisfactory.
UP Home Guards duty allocation There was rampant corruption..
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There was rampant corruption due in duty allocation of about 150,000 home guards in Uttar Pradesh. In order to bring in systemic efficiency and change the status quo, I started with a small experiment in Ayodhya district in which a locally made software similar to election duty allotment software was used for duty allocation of home guards in police stations and other sensitive places. Even after my transfer, I kept upgrading the software and also pursued with Home Guards department for its state wide usage. We battled stiff resistance from higher officers as well as the political leadership, but after a long haul, the system was finally implemented state wide and it’s still running smoothly. Some other states have learned and copied this model in India.
Direct Benefit Transfer for agriculture subsidy in Uttar Pradesh My team started..
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My team started DBT for various agriculture subsidies in UP registering about 10 million (1 crore) farmers on the portal and transferring subsidies directly to their bank accounts through the governments Public Financial Management System (PFMS).
Jul. 2011 - Jun. 2017
A member of the Scientific Advisory Committee (SAC) of the Harvard School of Public Health's BetterBirth clinical trial. BetterBirth was focused on improving facility-based care during the period of highest risk of death and complications for women and babies – the 48 hours around childbirth. The BetterBirth Program used the World Health Organization’s (WHO) Safe Childbirth Checklist, a powerful tool that supports birth attendants to consistently deliver essential childbirth practices proven to address the biggest killers of women and babies.
Jan. 2014 - Ongoing
Surgo Foundation is a nonprofit organization dedicated to solving health and social problems with precision using tools available from behavioral science, data science, and artificial intelligence to unlock solutions that improve and save lives. Surgo works n the United States and in low-income countries on issues like COVID-19, HIV/AIDS, tuberculosis, maternal mortality, health care, housing, and more.
APR. 2021 - Ongoing
The Indian Institute of Management (IIM), Visakhapatnam conducts a prestigious MBA Program in Digital Governance and Management under the aegis of and with the support of National e-Governance Division (NeGD), Ministry of Electronics & Information Technology (MeitY), Govt. of India (GOI). The Program Advisory Committee, consultation with the approval of NeGD, MeitY, GOI, will strengthen the Program on an ongoing basis as regards content and contemporaneity, relevance and rigour.
DEC. 2020 - Ongoing
The OASIS study is a collaboration between the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine (UK), the Public Health Foundation of India in Gurugram (India), Institute of Development Studies in Brighton (UK), Royal Veterinary College in London ( UK) and the West Bengal University of Animal and Fishery Sciences in Kolkata (India). The main aims of the study are to engage with multiple stakeholders and co-design and implement (on a small scale) an intervention to operationalise antibiotic stewardship for human and livestock health in rural community settings in India.
Whether someone should join the Civil Services depends on their aptitude and interests. Don't choose Civil Services as a career option without looking at other career options available
Panelists were of the view that governments need to adopt the best of the technologies..
Amod Kumar's e-governance initiatives showed public and private sectors worked better together…
Panelists were of the view that governments need to adopt the best of the technologies..
Amod Kumar's e-governance initiatives showed public and private sectors worked better together…
Kumar had an idea. He adapted this programme as a PPP initiative, establishing a society called Lokvani which signed contracts with kiosk owners, registering them as franchisee owners. The programme was called Lokvani too. Though the registration amount was nominal, the kiosk owner had invested in the business and the onus of making it work lay on him.
24 June 2020
An effective response to contain the impact of covid-19 on the rural population must include IPs. We suggest that clear guidelines be provided to IPs..
14 December 2018
The law has not succeeded in reducing the informal healthcare market as there are not enough alternatives in place to provide universal healthcare.
08 November 2018
Millions of private informal healthcare providers provide essential doorstep health services to rural households in India. The law has not succeeded...
