Sanjeev Sanyal appointed as new Principal Economic Adviser

Leading financial economist and Managing Director of Deutsche Bank, Sanjeev Sanyal, was on Friday appointed as the Principal Economic Adviser in the finance ministry.Sanyal has been appointed on contract basis for a three-year term. In the finance ministry, his job will be to assist Chief Economic Adviser Arvind Subramanian in undertaking research on economic policies and management of the economy.

An Oxford Rhodes Scholar, Sanyal, has played an important role in changing the image of India as an international investment destination.An Eisenhower Fellowship awardee for his pioneering work on urban systems, Sanyal’s appointment is significant



at a time when a lot of policy changes are taking place around rapid urbanisation and infrastructure development in India to mitigate poverty.

In one of his earlier interviews, Sanyal had said, “India will be an urban majority country within a generation but we are not preparing for this. We judge our cities by the size of their flyovers. In fact, “walkability” is the single most important urban design concept for old cities and new. People think that public transport is all about creating heavy metro rails, buses, or Bus Rapid Transit (BRT) systems. However, no public transport system can work without walking the last mile,”