Arun Jain is the chairman and managing director of Intellect Design Arena Limited.He is also the Founder of ‘Mission Samriddhi’, a social impact enterprise dedicated to holistic human development in India, through the design and development of projects that are sustainable and capable of scale to positively impact the larger population. The objectives of Mission Samriddhi are: Celebrate, Connect, Catalyze.
One of the architects of Kerala’s democratic decentralisation initiative,Shri S. M. Vijayanand IAS (Retd.)is Former Secretary, Ministry of Panchayati Raj &Former Chief Secretary, Government of Kerala
During his 11 years as Secretary, Local Self-Government, Kerala, Shri Vijayanand has played a key role in the devolution of funds, powers and personnel to the local government institutions. Besides serving as Member-Secretary of the Sen Committee on Democratic Decentralisation, he has served as member of the second and fourth Finance Commissions of Kerala and the third Administrative Reforms panel of the State and is currently the Chairman of the sixth state finance commission, Kerala.
As the Secretary, Ministry of Panchayati Raj, Shri Vijayanand played a lead role in persuading all the States to adopt the concept of Gram Panchayat Development Plan (GPDP) on the lines of the People’s Plan of Kerala.
Dr. W.R.Reddy IAS(Retd), a Kerala cadre officer of 1986, has worked both in states and center in multiple capacities, mostly engaged in rural upliftment and building good governance practices and institutions. With his flair for agriculture-centric development, because of his education and upbringing in the sector, he has made tremendous contributions for the welfare of the farmers of the country.
Dr. W.R.Reddy is an eminent rural development expert with rich experience of working with Panchayati Raj Institutions both at grassroot level of handholding in the decentralized planning as District Collector in Kerala and at policy level as Director General of National Institute of Rural Development & Panchayati Raj, Hyderabad. He has deep interest in strengthening the decentralized governance by engaging with Gram Panchayats. He wholeheartedly believes that the future sustainable development of India is dependent on how strongly we nurture the Gram Panchayat leadership and enable them to plan, execute and lead towards sustainable development with equity and inclusiveness.
Shri Vishwanath Giriraj retired as Additional Chief Secretary (Finance ) Maharashtra Government .He joined IAS in 1985 and held various positions in Government of Maharashtra including Chief Executive officer, Zilla Parishad-Chandrapur , Collector-Yavatmal , Additional Tribal Commissioner, Director Groundwater Development Agency, Principal Secretary Rural Employment, Water Conservation, Rural Development & Panchayat Raj . After his retirement, he was appointed as Chairman of the Fifth State Finance Commission, Maharashtra, a constitutional post.
Shri V.Giriraj has also worked in the Khadi & Village Industries Commission , Government of India. He is a graduate in Commerce from Loyola College, Chennai and LLB from Mumbai University.
Presently he is Chief Executive Officer of Maharashtra Bamboo Promotion Foundation, a not for profit company promoted by Government of Maharashtra and Tata Trusts and lives in Mumbai.
As Program Director for Mission Samriddhi, Ram is not only focused on implementation of ongoing projects but also work closely with the Executive Council as well as the Advisory Councils in shaping the program’s overall framework.
Empowering underprivileged youth is something that Ram is passionate about. A motivational speaker, he has traveled the length and breadth of the country and addressed more than 50,000 youth in 18 states. Ram has an MCA from NIT Trichy and an MBA from York University, Canada
Ajay Kumar is an engineer from IIT, Delhi who has spent last 40 years in domains of rural development, agriculture, use of Information Technology for Governance, Agriculture , Development etc while working with several NGOs, CSR, State and Central Governments. His current interests are in promoting new institutions in Third Sector, Governance of Panchayats, Policy issues in Rural Development and Mentorship of Young Professionals.
Sonali Srivastava is development and management professional with three decades of experience in design and management of complex change management interventions across private, government and non- government organizations
She is the founder and CEO of Anode Governance Lab, a governance and management consulting company. Conceptualized through direct implementation in Karnataka, Anode now primarily works as an expert and resource organization. It’s key focus has been to facilitate sustainable rural development through strengthening public institutions at the last mile, with specific attention to Gram Panchayats. Anode brings in Organization Development (OD) principles to public administration, focusing on strengthening processes and outcomes both with people at the center of change process.
Sonali has worked in Asian Paints, Eicher Consulting and Barefoot College, Tilonia. She is a non-executive independent director on the Boards of BetterPlace Safety Solutions Private Limited, a Bangalore-based company engaged in digitising life cycle of blue collar workforce, and Trickle Up India, a Section 8 company committed to bringing the ultra-poor out of poverty. She is an alumnus from XLRI Jamshedpur and SOAS, London.
Yogesh Andlay is a founding team member of several leading well-known companies in IT, consultancy and education field. He is Co-founder of Nucleus Software. He is a Mentor, a Coach and an early stage investor in several startups.
Yogesh has been an advisor to the Millennium Alliance program of FICCI. The Millennium Alliance, a catalytic fund, was set up jointly by USAID, DST, DFID (UKAID), and several other organizations. In the last five years, Millennium Alliance has supported more than 120 social sector innovations impacting about 10 million people. These have been selected from amongst about 5,000 applicants who applied for the catalytic funding. These enterprises have been in the field of education, healthcare, agriculture, energy, and water and sanitation, etc
Also, Yogesh has served as the Co-Chair of the Startup Committee of FICCI and a member of the Science and Technology Board of FICCI. He serves on the Board of IIM Udaipur Incubation Center, WHEELS Charitable Foundation and as Advisory Board member of FITT, IIT Delhi, TBIU-KIIT . He is a sought after mentor by the entrepreneurs incubated at FICCI supported incubators and accelerators.
Yogesh also serves on the board of SOIL – School of Inspired Leadership http://www.soilindia.net. SOIL has been recognized as a pioneer in leadership education and has won laurels for its unique approach to leadership development. It is founded on five pillars of mindfulness, ethics, compassion, diversity, and sustainability, Yogesh Andlay graduated from IIT Delhi in 1979. He was President of IIT Delhi Alumni Association during the year 2006-07. He has also been an active participant in Pan IIT Alumni activities.
Shri Dilip Kumar
Shri Dilip Kumar Pal, a specialist in Capacity Development & Training with particular focus on Panchayats & Rural Development and Decentralised Participatory Planning, retired from Government service as Special Secretary to the Government of West Bengal, Panchayats & Rural Development Department.
Shri Dilip Pal was Head of the Expert Committee for Suggesting Amendments in the West Bengal Panchayat Acts, Rules and Regulations and has served as Adviser to the Government of West Bengal on matters related to Panchayats & Rural Development. He has been a National Trainer for Capacity Building Training, National Trainer for Decentralized Planning and was also Joint Director, SIPRD and Member-Secretary, Society for Training Research on Panchayats Rural Development (STARPARD).
Shri Dilip Kumar Pal has served as an advisor to various organizations, has provided significant contributions to multiple guidelines / publications and has been a member of a number of committees under the Ministry of Panchayati Raj, Government of India, lastly the one formed for preparing the GPDP Guidelines published in 2018.
He is currently the Project Team Leader, National Institute of Rural Development &Panchayati Raj, Hyderabad, leading the National Projects for Creating Model GP Clusters across India.
India Panchayat Foundation 