Ram Sewak Sharma is an Indian bureaucrat and former civil servant. From February 2021, he is serving as the Chief Executive Officer of the
National Health Authority, an Indian governmental organisation tasked with managing public health insurance till February 2023. Previously, he has headed the
Telecom Regulatory Authority of India
The Telecom Regulatory Authority of India (TRAI) is a regulatory body set up by the Government of India under section 3 of the Telecom Regulatory Authority of India Act, 1997. It is the regulator of the telecommunications sector in India. ...
, and the
Unique Identification Authority of India
Aadhaar ( hi, आधार, ādhār, lit=base, foundation, bn, আধার) is a 12-digit unique identity number that can be obtained voluntarily by the citizens of India and resident foreign nationals who have spent over 182 days in twelve ...
.
Early life and education
Born in a small village of
Uttar Pradesh
Uttar Pradesh (; , 'Northern Province') is a state in northern India. With over 200 million inhabitants, it is the most populated state in India as well as the most populous country subdivision in the world. It was established in 1950 ...
, he completed his early education from schools near his village. He joined
University of Allahabad
, mottoeng = "As Many Branches So Many Trees"
, established =
, type = Public
, chancellor = Ashish Chauhan
, vice_chancellor = Sangita Srivastava
, head_label ...
from where he earned his Bachelor of Science (BSc). He completed his master's in Mathematics from
IIT, Kanpur
The Indian Institute of Technology Kanpur (IIT Kanpur) Hindi: भारतीय प्रौद्योगिकी संस्थान कानपुर) is a public institute of technology located in Kanpur, Uttar Pradesh, India. It was ...
, in 1978.
While on leave from the Government of India, he earned a master's in computer science from
University of California, Riverside
The University of California, Riverside (UCR or UC Riverside) is a public land-grant research university in Riverside, California. It is one of the ten campuses of the University of California system. The main campus sits on in a suburban distr ...
in 2002 and subsequently a PhD from
IIT, Delhi.
Career
Ram Sewak Sharma joined the Indian Administrative Service (IAS) in 1978.He belongs to the Jharkhand cadre.
In 1986, he wrote a program in
DBASE, a programming language that would keep a record of all stolen firearms in the crime-prone district. As soon as a firearm would be found, the programme would run a search query among thousands of age-old records. This software enabled the solving of 22 cases in just 30 days.
He held responsibilities in his home cadre of Jharkhand as well as in ministries of the Central government, including, as Secretary, Department of Electronics and Information Technology and Chief Secretary of Jharkhand .
UIDAI
As the first Director General of the
Unique Identification Authority of India
Aadhaar ( hi, आधार, ādhār, lit=base, foundation, bn, আধার) is a 12-digit unique identity number that can be obtained voluntarily by the citizens of India and resident foreign nationals who have spent over 182 days in twelve ...
, he helped create the 12-digit identity number, called
Aadhaar
Aadhaar ( hi, आधार, ādhār, lit=base, foundation, bn, আধার) is a 12-digit unique identity number that can be obtained voluntarily by the citizens of India and resident foreign nationals who have spent over 182 days in twelve ...
, which is available to all eligible residents in India. He has authored a book titled ''The Making of Aadhaar: World's Largest Identity Platform'' () describing this project.
TRAI
He was appointed the Chairman of
Telecom Regulatory Authority of India
The Telecom Regulatory Authority of India (TRAI) is a regulatory body set up by the Government of India under section 3 of the Telecom Regulatory Authority of India Act, 1997. It is the regulator of the telecommunications sector in India. ...
(TRAI) from August 2015 for a period of three years. At the end of this tenure, he was given a further extension of two years.
As Chairman of TRAI, he steered the adoption of
net neutrality regulations in India. He has taken measures to enable
consumer choice in determining market outcomes, e.g. a new framework for broadcasting and cable services, regulations for mobile number portability, and the use of crowd-sourced information or field measurements to inform customers
As the TRAI chairman, his goal to gradually reduc
Interconnect Usage Chargesearned him acclaim from some and criticism from others. Critics allege that the decision is biased towards
Jio
Reliance Jio Infocomm Limited, doing business as Jio, is an Indian telecommunications company and a subsidiary of Jio Platforms, headquartered in Navi Mumbai, Maharashtra, India. It operates a national LTE network with coverage across all 2 ...
while those defending TRAI claim that reducing these charges was necessary for the continuous growth of the sector.
CoWIN
He is the chairperson of an empowered committee for administration of Covid-19 vaccine delivery technology platform (Co-WIN).
CoWIN along with the national Covid-19 vaccination campaign was launched by the Prime Minister on January 16, 2021. Dr. Sharma was called back from retirement to take the responsibility of developing and executing the CoWIN or the Covid-19 Vaccine Intelligence Network. India crossed a mark of administering 2 billion vaccinations in July, 2022. The country also signed an MoU with the government of the Co-operative Republic of Guyana for sharing CoWIN.
Dr. Sharma also served on the National Expert Group on Vaccine Administration for COVID-19, a body constituted by the Government of India to tackle the Covid-19 pandemic in India.
NHA
In February 2021, Sharma was appointed as the Chief Executive Officer of the
National Health Authority of India, a body responsible for implementing two health initiatives of the Government of India,
Ayushman Bharat Jan Arogya Yojana (AB PM-JAY) which is a public health insurance scheme and
Ayushman Bharat Digital Mission, a platform to promote digitization of healthcare in India and served the office till February 2023.
Controversies
In 2018, Sharma dismissed concerns regarding privacy and potential misuse of India's national biometric ID, and disclosed his Aadhar number on twitter, challenging users to “do any harm to me.” and stating that the purpose of the challenge was "... to debunk the theory that Aadhaar compromises the privacy of the person.”
Following this, individual researchers were able to locate his personal address, the number of the mobile phone he used as well as an alternate phone number that he used, his
Whatsapp
WhatsApp (also called WhatsApp Messenger) is an internationally available freeware, cross-platform, centralized instant messaging (IM) and voice-over-IP (VoIP) service owned by American company Meta Platforms (formerly Facebook). It allows use ...
profile picture, his voter identification card and his tax identification card (
PAN card
A permanent account number (PAN) is a ten-character alphanumeric identifier, issued in the form of a laminated "PAN card", by the Indian Income Tax Department, to any "person" who applies for it or to whom the department allots the number wit ...
). Sharma dismissed these disclosures on Twitter, stating that the information could not be used to harm him.
The information was used to make a symbolic deposit of 1 in one of his bank accounts, to demonstrate the potential for misuse. The UIDAI made a statement indicating that this personal information concerning Mr. Sharma was already in the public domain. In December 2020, Sharma's Aadhar number was used to fraudulently register him for an agricultural benefit scheme, the
PM Kisan Yojana, as a result of which benefits that he was not eligible for were deposited into his account. Sharma has blamed the state government for failing to conduct adequate verification.
Awards
*
Prime Minister’s Awards for Excellence in Public Administration - 2008
References
External links
Complete Biodata
{{DEFAULTSORT:Sharma, Ram Sewak
IIT Kanpur alumni
Living people
University of California, Riverside alumni
1955 births
Indian Administrative Service officers