Rita Sharma

Dr Rita Sharma is the Secretary to the National Advisory Council of the Government of India. Since 1974, Dr Sharma has worked at various levels of government in India in agricultural development, food security, poverty alleviation, rural livelihood strategies, natural resource management, gender issues and financial management.

Her service has included the positions of Secretary to the Government of India in the Ministry of Rural Development, Special Secretary in the Department of Agricultural Research and Education, Commissioner of land resources and extension in the Ministry of Agriculture, and Principal Secretary and Financial Commissioner in the Department of Finance in the state government of Uttar Pradesh.  Dr. Sharma was responsible for the implementation of programmes and projects for poverty alleviation, infrastructure creation, employment, and risk management in rural areas, which account for more than 70 percent of India’s population.

Among programmes that Dr Sharma has developed or contributed to are the State and National Agriculture Policy and the policy for intellectual-property management and commercialization of technologies in the Indian Council of Agricultural Research. She has negotiated several multilateral and bilateral development projects, has represented India at the FAO, CGIAR, and World Bank, and was nominated as co-chair for Asia for the consultative process leading to the International Assessment for Agriculture Science and Technology for Development.

She is also a member of the Board of Trustees of the International Rice Research Institute. Dr Sharma holds a M.Sc. and Ph.D. in development economics from Cornell University and an M.Sc. in physics from Delhi University.