Montek Singh Ahluwalia

Montek Singh Ahluwalia (born 24 November 1943) is an Indian economist and civil servant who was the Deputy Chairman of the Planning Commission of the Republic of India, a position which carries the rank of a Cabinet Minister. He tendered his resignation for this post in May 2014 following the impending end of the UPAII regime at the center. He was previously the first Director of the Independent Evaluation Office at the International Monetary Fund.

Career

After graduating from University of Oxford, Ahluwalia joined the World Bank in 1968. At the age of 28, he became the youngest "Division Chief" in the World Bank's bureaucracy, in charge of the Income Distribution Division in the World Bank's Development Research Centre.

He returned to India in 1979 to take up the position of Economic Adviser in the Ministry of Finance. He held several senior positions as a civil servant, including Special Secretary to the Prime Minister, Commerce secretary, Secretary Department of Economic Affairs in the Finance Ministry and Finance Secretary. In 1998 he was appointed Member of the Planning Commission.

In 2001, he was chosen by the Board of International Monetary Fund to be the first director of the newly created Independent Evaluation Office, in which capacity he supervised several studies critical of various aspects of the functioning of the IMF.

In June 2004, he resigned from the IMF position to take up as the deputy chairman of the Planning Commission as part of the United Progressive Alliance government in New Delhi.

Ahluwalia has been a key figure in the Indian economic reform process. He has consistently pushed for economic reforms involving a shift from the earlier reliance on extensive government control over the economy with high levels of protection, to a much more open economy with a larger role for the private sector responding to market forces and greater openness to imports, foreign technology and direct foreign investment.

He wrote an internal paper in 1990 proposing broad ranging economic reforms, which was leaked to the Press and was much discussed publicly. As Commerce Secretary under Mr. P. Chidambaram as Commerce Minister, he played a major role in trade reforms which were introduced in July 1991. He was one of the small team, under Dr. Manmohan Singh as Finance Minister, which guided and implemented reforms from 1991 to 1996.

As deputy chairman of the Planning Commission from 2004 onwards, he supervised the preparation of both the Eleventh Plan (2007-08 to 2011-12) titled "Towards Faster and More Inclusive Growth" and subsequently also the Twelfth Plan (2012-13 to 2016-17) titled "Faster, More Inclusive and Sustainable Growth".

The President of India awarded him the Padma Vibhushan, India's second highest civilian honour for public service.

He has published a number of articles on various aspects of the Indian economy in academic journals. He is one of the authors of "Redistribution with Growth" by Chenery et al., published by Oxford University Press in 1974.

He has also written on various aspects of India's economic reforms and on the inclusiveness of India's growth process

Awards and honours

2013 Honoris Causa Doctorate of Science

2011 Honoris Causa Doctorate of Science

2011 Padma Vibhushan

2008 Doctor of Civil Law