TADP Team
Gajanan Rauta
Gajanan Rauta anchors the team at LWE- Aspirational District Resource centre (LWRC), Ministry of Home Affairs. At the LWRC, he manages overall integration of the Transformation of Aspirational District Programme (TADP) engagements.
Gajanan has worked with the Ministry of Rural Development in the flagship programmes like MGNREGA and Saansad Adarsh Gram Yojana. His role was instrumental in improving the timely payment of MGNREGA wages, skilling of Barefoot technicians and creating climate resilient infrastructure under MGNREGA. He has played significant role in establishing Odisha Tribal Development Society, designing and implementation of Focused Area Development Programme, monitoring of Tribal Sub Plan in Odisha. He has also worked in the Vanbandhu Kalyan Yojana of Government of Gujarat and was part of the Gujarat State Tribal Development Residential School Education Society. He has played significant role in managing Eklavya Model residential schools, Girls residential schools, strengthening the school infrastructure, and managing Public Private Partnership in tribal school education.
His core skills are on Public policy, Project management, Monitoring and evaluation, Tribal Education and Livelihoods. He holds a PG Diploma in Rural Development from Xavier Institute of Social Service, Ranchi.
Madhvi Malhotra
Madhvi Malhotra anchors the team at LWE- Aspirational District Resource centre (LWRC), Ministry of Home Affairs. At the LWRC, she works closely with the Ministry of Home Affairs in the implementation of Transformation of Aspirational Districts Programme (TADP) particularly with data-driven governance.
Madhvi has work experience of over 7 years in implementation, evaluation and monitoring of Analytics and Actuarial Science. She has joined TRI to be a part of the Central cell of TADP programme. Before joining TRI, Madhvi worked as a Consultant, deployed by Tata Trusts, with Ministry of Drinking Water and Sanitation (MoDWS) where she was involved with the monitoring and evaluation of the various programs of the MoDWS.
Madhvi has completed certification courses in business analytics from IIM Lucknow and Kelley School of Business. Her hobbies are reading novels, solving sudoku and crosswords and listening to music
State Resource Cell (SRC) – Jharkhand
Ranchi
Shyamal Santra
Shyamal Santra, anchors the TADP programme implementation in Jharkhand, as part of State Resource Cell, Department of Home, Jail and Disaster Managment, Government of Jharkhand.
Shyamal has over 12 years of experience in Social Development Sector in areas of Health and Nutrition in some of the most underdeveloped areas of India particularly Left Wing Extremism (LWE) affected districts of Jharkhand and Assam with leading development agencies like UNICEF (Deputed to Dept of Health and Family Welfare, Government of Jharkhand), Child In Need Institute (CINI) and SOS Children Villages of India.
He had led the piloting of ‘Child and Women Friendly Community’ (CWFC) approach integrating Education, Protection, Health and Nutrition (EPHN) through Panchayati Raj Institutions in Patra Panchayat of West Bengal. He had architected the first Mamta Wahan –Call Centre, the home-to facility referral transport system for pregnant women and also successfully advocated in designing, demonstration and up scaling of state specific ‘Village Health and Nutrition Day’ (VHND) with Department of Health and Family Welfare, Govt of Jharkhand. In Assam, he had played a key role in inclusion of ‘orphan and abandoned children in ongoing National Registration of Citizenship (NRC) processes.
A Post Graduate in Development Management from Tata-Dhan Academy, Madurai and Master of Social Work, he was trained at ‘American Express Leadership Academy’ and Humanitarian Academy at Harvard.
Mohd. Karimuddin Malik
Mohd. Karimuddin Malik is the State Programme Officer for Transformation of Aspirational Districts Programme (TADP) at State LWRC, Department of Home, Jail and Disaster Management, Government of Jharkhand. He is overall responsible for effective planning, implementation and monitoring of TADP and SCA scheme in the State.
Karimuddin Malik has worked with the Ministry of Rural Development, Government of India in the flagship programmes like Shyama Prasad Mukherji Rurban Mission (SPMRM) and Saansad Adarsh Gram Yojana (SAGY). He was part of the core team for policy formulation and methodology designing of cluster selection under Shyama Prasad Mukherji Rurban Mission (SPMRM). He managed the team of NMMU and various SPMUs to work towards the deliverables of the Ministry w.r.t the programme implementation. During the assignment, he developed robust real time web based monitoring system “RurbanSoft” for SPMRM. He has also worked as PMRDF in Prime Minister’s Rural Development Fellowship scheme, a most prestigious fellowship programme of Ministry of Rural Development. He worked with District Administration to address the development deficit of the area and assisted District Administration for better planning and implementation of Flagship schemes such as MGNREGA, PMGSY, NRLM, SSA, NSAP, DBT etc. Besides that, he has also worked in Plan India and Action Aid projects under Education, Nutrition and Livelihood sectors in various districts of Uttar Pradesh.
His core skills are on Public policy, Project management, Monitoring and evaluation and Skill development. He holds dual Post Graduate degree, Masters in Development Practice from Tata Institute of Social Sciences, Mumbai and Masters in Social Engineering from Lucknow University. He has also achieved a Post Graduate Diploma in Urban Planning and Development.
State Resource Cell (SRC) – Chhattisgarh
Raipur
Neeraja Kudrimoti
As the State Programme Officer for Transformation of Aspirational Districts Programme (TADP) – Chhattisgarh, Neeraja is collaborating with the District Administration, the State Govt. and other stakeholders and mentoring the fellows for targeted interventions and strengthening the processes for effective and efficient implementation of key services that will bring a lasting, positive effect in the lives of the citizens in these Aspirational Districts.
Neeraja began her career as a Software Engineer, but to gain higher personal and professional satisfaction, she decided to make a professional shift to the development sector. She joined the Prime Minister’s Rural Development Fellowship and chose to work in the district of Bijapur in Chhattisgarh. It gave her concrete understanding of the ground level realities, especially regarding Malnutrition and Livelihood issues and also the systemic challenges for the District Administration at the ground level. She later joined TISS as a Program Manager where she advised the PSEs to design and implement impactful CSR Projects.
She holds an MSc degree in Public Policy from University College London (UCL), linking her ground-level experiences to academics and evidence-based policy making.
Shrish
Shrish has earned double postgraduate degrees in MA Social Work (2008-10) from Tata Institute of Social Sciences, Mumbai (TISS), and MSc Public Policy (2016-17) from University College London. He was the recipient of the prestigious Chevening Scholarship by Foreign and Commonwealth Office of the United Kingdom.
He has more than 8 years of experience in the development sector, primarily with government agencies. He has worked on issues ranging from education, livelihoods, nutrition, governance, skill development, etc..
He has worked as an Assistant Programme Manager-State with the Gujarat Livelihoods Promotion Company-the state rural livelihoods mission of Government of Gujarat. He was responsible for overseeing the implementation of Swarnajayanti Gram Swarozgar Yojana, Skill Development Projects, & Sakhi Mandal Yojana across the state of Gujarat. As part of the strategy development team, he played an instrumental role in rolling-out the National Rural Livelihoods Mission in Gujarat. To gain core grass-roots experience, he joined the Prime Minister’s Rural Development Fellowship (an initiative of MoRD, GoI) and was posted in the Dantewada district of Chhattisgarh for almost four years. Shrish credits this experience as life-changing, as working with tribal communities impacted him positively on a personal as well as professional level. He worked on improving the efficiency and delivery of flagship programs of the government, such as SSA, NRLM, MGNREGA, IWMP, ICDS, etc. He was instrumental in fetching awards for the district for SSA, MGNREGA, and ICDS. He designed and implemented a project for inclusive education and launched the state’s first barrier-free residential school for Children with Disabilities. He also worked on improving qualitative education in the residential schools in Dantewada, serving more than 12000 students. He was also involved in many education projects that brought laurels to the district and the state. These projects include PET/PMT coaching center, coaching for Navodaya and Sainik schools, Education City-A 150 acres campus for various educational institutions, smart classrooms, learning levels, multi-lingual education, etc. He was also instrumental in launching the Bastar division’s first milk processing unit and dairy farmer’s cooperative. He also contributed to establishing an SEZ-like project for women SHGs. He briefly worked as State PESA Coordinator with the Government of Maharashtra. After his stint in London, he joined the Chief Minister’s Good Governance Fellowship (an initiative of Govt. of Chhattisgarh) and worked with the Secretary, Department of Social Welfare. He launched the nation’s first incubation program for persons with disabilities during his tenure he also worked on a range of policy issues. Before joining as SPO, TADP, he worked with PRADAN as Lead, Capacity Building.
He is passionate about linkages between education, ecology, sustainable livelihoods, and traditional indigenous wisdom. He believes in the strength of the system and people and desires to bring in changes that mass and positive impact.
State Resource Cell (SRC) – Bihar
Ashutosh Singh
Ashutosh Singh has a degree in Sociology (Hon.) from Banaras Hindu University and a Master’s degree in Social Work (Urban and Rural Community Development) from Tata Institute of Social Sciences Mumbai.
Ashutosh started his professional journey with a grassroots organization in Chhattisgarh and then has worked extensively across different parts of the country. His experience over the years enabled him to work on issues of Maternal and Child Health, Reproductive Health, SHGs, Financial Inclusion, Livelihood, Education, and child rights, both with NGOs and different government departments. During his tenure with the previous organization, Under the NABARD’ WADI Project, he was able to improvise the livelihood of 500 hundred small and marginalized farmers. Under the umbrella of the National Horticulture Mission in Chhattisgarh, he positively impacted the livelihood of 1000 + Farmers. He has initiated LBW tracking both at the institution and community level in the Mirzapur district of Uttar Pradesh. He has also played an active role in the development of training programs for ASHA volunteers for the State of Maharashtra.
As a development professional, and as a part of the TADP team, he wishes to use his skills and expertise to help the system to deliver more people-friendly policies which impact the lives of people positively.
Praveen Sriramshetty
Mr. Praveen Sriramshetty has an overall experience of 20 years in program management, strategic planning, grant management, partnership management, and issue-based advocacy on Agriculture, Livelihoods, Education, Health & Nutrition, and local governance. He has a good experience of staff management which includes, staff development, mentoring, and performance appraisal.
He has vast experience of working in the education sector and has lead projects like access to quality education, inclusive education, and livelihood education in the states of Telangana, Andhra Pradesh, and Maharashtra in India, and he also worked in Nepal. In the previous position, he was responsible for scaling up of ICT enabled extension in agriculture, health & nutrition in the state of Jharkhand supported by BMGF and USAID, respectively. The projects aimed to build the extension capacities of agriculture and health workers and build community and state-level networks with NGOs, government, and other key stakeholders to generate content and promote the agenda of improving agriculture, health, and nutrition behaviors. He has successfully established partnerships with Health Mission, Nutrition Mission, and Livelihood Missions of the Government of Jharkhand.
He brings to the Team not only his extensive experience working on various development projects across India, Nepal, and Ethiopia, which has exposed him to different socio-economic and cultural environments but also his broadened perspective of the development sector.
Fellowship Support Team (FST)
New Delhi
Aditya Tyagi
Aditya Tyagi works with the Aspirational Districts Fellowship Support Cell at New Delhi. The responsibility of the cell is well-being and professional development of the Aspirational District Fellows.
Aditya is also the co-founder of i-Saksham, an education initiative. He comes with 14 years of experience working in Computer Science, Data Analytics and Rural Development. Previously, he has worked with Ministry of Rural Development to support the Prime Minister’s Rural Development (PMRD) Fellowship scheme and also contributed to programmes like Mission Antyodaya, Gram Swaraj Abhiyan, Rurban Mission, etc. . He worked as a PMRDF in Bihar and Arunachal Pradesh with focus on system improvement related projects. Before joining the development sector, Aditya worked with i3 Consulting and with McKinsey Knowledge Centre.
Aditya completed his Masters in Computer Applications from Jawaharlal Nehru University and Masters in Development Practice from Tata Institute of Social Sciences.
Gouri Rajagopal
Gouri Rajagopal anchors the Aspirational Districts Fellowship Support Team from New Delhi. As a part of the Fellowship Support Team, she is responsible for the well-being and professional development of the Aspirational District Fellows.
Previously, she has worked as an Associate at Nine Dot Nine Education, where she was involved in a consulting project to build a school education pipeline in resource starved districts of rural India. Prior to that, she has also worked as a Business Analyst at EXL Inductis for a financial services client.
Gouri holds a B.Tech degree in Civil Engineering from NIT Tiruchirapalli. She has also completed Post Graduate Programme in Management Practice (PGPM) from Vedica Scholars Programme for Women.