Dr. Sankar Datta[1] (born 17 February 1958), is an Indian academic and professional development worker. Since the early 1980s, Datta is known for his engagement in rural livelihood promotion and support activities. Most of his field works have been in the undulating terrains of Central India, such as, Chhota Udaipur, in the west, and Jharkhand in the east, which are inhabited by various tribal groups.
Sankar Datta is 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,[1] and leading the Livelihood Initiative of the university 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[3][4] along with Vijay Mahajan, Deep Joshi, and PRADAN, two notable livelihood promotion and support institutions of India before joining the university.[5]
Datta is known in India's development domain for his work in the area of Livelihoods.[9][10]
Early life
Sankar Datta was born 17 February 1958, in Jamshedpur, Jharkhand (it was Bihar then), India. He spent his early childhood in Bihar. He did his schooling from Patha Bhavana, Santiniketan.[citation needed]
He was also a visiting faculty for several institutions like national Institute of rural development and panchayati raj in hyderabad, Xavier School of Rural Management (XSRM, Erstwhile XIMB-RM), National Institute of Agricultural Marketing (CCS NIAM), KSRM, TISS among others.
As a practitioner and development Professional
Datta has been closely associated with promotion of Rural Livelihoods as a Practitioner.
He was in-charge of operations while setting up the BASIX group of Companies, a new generation livelihood support institution[11]
He had initiated and headed the first livelihood project of PRADAN, a major livelihood support NGO of India
He was a Team-Leader of the Spearhead Team responsible for promoting soybean in MP and organizing the network of producer co-operatives
Other professional engagements
Served on the Board of several institutions[12] including Indian Grameen Services,[13]Village Financial Services Ltd,[14] IndusTree Crafts Ltd. Purbanchal Maitree Development Society.[15]
Member of the Advisory Committee of Center for Management in Agriculture (CMA) of the IIM-Ahmedabad
Member of the Livelihood Advisory Group of the Sustainable Livelihoods India Initiative organized by ACCESS Development Services.
Member of the Planning Commission Working Group for the 12th Five-Year Plan on MGNREGA.[8]
Publications
Apart from presenting various papers[16][17][18][19][20] on the livelihood challenges faced by the poor in various national and international calamities he has published several books.[21] One of his frequently used publications is the Resource Book for Livelihood Promotion,[22][23] co-authored with Vijay Mahajan and Gitali Thakur.
He has also been involved in designing and editing the first five years of the State of India's Livelihood Report.[24]
Expertise
Rural Development in General and livelihood promotion & support in specific.[25]
^Datta, Sankar; N. Srinivasan (July 2008). "Consolidating the Growth of Microfinance Microfinance India: State of the Sector Report 2008 by N. Srinivasan Review by: Sankar Datta". Economic and Political Weekly. No. 30. 44: 31–32. JSTOR40279309.
^Edited by Dr. S.Srinivas, APMAS, Dr. Sankar Datta, ISLP and Prof. S.J.Phansalkar (January 2006). "Rural Livelihood in Andhra Pradesh"(PDF). Mahila Abhivruddhi Society, Andhra Pradesh (APMAS) and Indian School of Livelihood Promotion. Mahila Abivruddhi Society, Andhra Pradesh (APMAS). Archived(PDF) from the original on 13 March 2014. Retrieved 2 July 2013. {{cite web}}: |author= has generic name (help)CS1 maint: multiple names: authors list (link)
^Sankar Datta; S L Narayana, Sirnivas (23 December 2010). Savings of the Poor: How they do it. ISBN978-8182910874.
^"Archived copy"(PDF). Archived(PDF) from the original on 2 February 2016. Retrieved 24 April 2016.{{cite web}}: CS1 maint: archived copy as title (link)
