Sankar Datta

Dr. Sankar Datta (born February 17, 1958), is an Indian academic and professional development worker. He has been engaged in rural livelihood promotion and support activities for more than three decades since the early 1980s. Most of his field works have been in the undulating terrains of central India, from Chhota Udaipur in the west to Jharkhand in the east inhabited by various tribal groups.

Datta is a management graduate from the very first batch of Institute of Rural Management Anand, Gujarat, also a graduate in Agriculture from G. B. Pant University of Agriculture and Technology and Ph.D. in Economics from Sardar Patel University.

Datta is currently a Development Evangelist, well known for his work in the field on livelihood support, as a part of institutions like PRADAN and BASIX. He was a Professor at Azim Premji University, Bengaluru, and leading the Livelihood Initiative of the university as well as a Member of the Faculty of Institute of Rural Management, Anand (IRMA) and Indian Institute of Management-Ahmedabad (IIM-A).

Having started his journey as a Spearhead Team Leader organizing soybean farmers in central parts of India, he continued working with small rural producers as part of the founding teams of BASIX/ Indian Grameen Services along with Vijay Mahajan, Deep Joshi, and PRADAN, two notable livelihood promotion and support institutions of India before joining the university.

He was also the member of faculty of Institute of Rural Management Anand, as well as policy forums such as Working Group of the Planning Commission (India) for the 12th Five-Year Plan (India).

Expertise

• Rural Development in General and livelihood promotion & support in specific.
• Dry land farming and Value Chain Management
• Gandhian economics for supporting livelihoods
• Value Chain Development