Member's Profile

Saumitra Chaudhuri looks after the Development Policy & Perspective Planning Division in the Planning Commission. This Division deals with core economic management issues. He is also the member in charge for State Plans of Gujarat, Himachal and Uttarakhand.

He has been a Member of the Economic Advisory Council to the Prime Minister since January, 2005. Till he joined the Planning Commission he was Economic Advisor & Research Co-ordinator with ICRA Limited, a full service credit rating agency, for sixteen years (1993-2009) and Executive Editor of the research publication Money & Finance. He began his working career in the Bureau of Industrial Costs & Prices (BICP), Ministry of Industry (1981-83) and later was senior economist in the Joint Plant Committee, Department of Steel (1983-85). Subsequently he was associated with Steel Authority of India Ltd (SAIL) and State Bank of India (SBI) (1986-91), besides for short durations with World Bank and UNIDO over the two decades.

He has a basic degree education in Science and studied economics at the Centre for Economic Studies & Planning, School of Social Sciences, Jawaharlal Nehru University, New Delhi

His association with government bodies include:

• Member of the Economic Advisory Council to the Prime Minister [Jan 2005—till date]
• Chairman of the Committee for Formulation of All Industry Rates of Duty Drawback 2005-06 to 2010-11 in the Ministry of Finance.
• Member of the High Level Committee set up by the Prime Minister to examine the Finances of Oil Companies and implications of rise in crude oil prices [Jun.-July 2008].
• Chairman of the Committee to Review the ADR / GDR /FCCB Scheme, Finance Ministry [May 2007 to Jan. 2008].
  
• Member of the High Level Committee on Estimation of Savings & Investments [Dec. 2007 to Dec. 2008].
• Member of the high-powered Inter-Ministerial Committee set up to examine pricing and taxation issues for petroleum products [Oct. 2005 to Feb. 2006].