The Centre for Social and Economic Progress (CSEP) hosted a seminar titled “Transforming the National Statistical System for a More Data-Driven Policy Making” on Wednesday, August 27, 2025.

The seminar featured a talk by Saurabh Garg, Secretary, Ministry of Statistics and Programme Implementation, Government of India. This was followed by a discussion with Janak Raj and Renu Kohli, Senior Fellows, CSEP. The session was chaired and moderated by Laveesh Bhandari, President, CSEP.

Speaker

Saurabh Garg

Saurabh Garg is an Indian Administrative Service officer of the Odisha Cadre. Dr Garg is presently Secretary, Ministry of Statistics and Programme Implementation (MoSPI), Government of India. Prior to joining MoSPI, Dr Garg was Secretary, Ministry of Social Justice and Empowerment, where he was involved in the formulation of policies for social, economic and educational empowerment of the vulnerable and marginalised communities.

Previously as CEO, Unique Identification Authority of India, he was instrumental in expanding the usage of Aadhaar and strengthening the technology stack of the Aadhaar ecosystem. He was Joint Secretary in the Ministry of Finance, Government of India; Secretary in the Departments of Agriculture, Industries and Urban Development at the Government of Odisha. He was on a secondment as Adviser at the World Bank, Washington DC. Prior to joining the IAS, he was with the Tata Administrative Service. He has rich experience in the domains of digitalization of agriculture, digital identities, direct benefit transfers schemes, infrastructure, Foreign Direct Investment (FDI) policies and urban development.

Dr Garg holds a Ph.D in International Economics and Development from the Johns Hopkins University, USA; an MBA from IIM, Ahmedabad and a B. Tech from IIT Delhi. He was a Chevening Gurukul scholar at the LSE, London.

Chair & Moderator

Laveesh Bhandari

Laveesh Bhandari is President and a Senior Fellow at CSEP.  Dr Bhandari has published widely on subjects related to sustainable livelihoods, industrial, economic, and social reforms in India, economic geography, and financial inclusion. He received his PhD in economics from Boston University for which he was awarded the Best Thesis in International Economics. He has taught economics at Boston University and IIT Delhi. Apart from applied economics research, Dr Bhandari has built, seeded, and exited from three companies in the research, analytics, and digital domains, including Indicus Analytics, a leading economic research firm. Currently, he is conducting research on issues of inclusion, India’s energy transition, and how it will impact the government as well as the economy.

Discussants

Janak Raj

Janak Raj is a Senior Fellow and leads the macroeconomic segment in the Growth, Finance and Development vertical at CSEP. He also works specifically on inter-linkages between economic growth and human development, fiscal federalism in the health sector, climate finance and multilateral development banks (MDBs) reforms. He is currently also a member of the JM Financial Centre for Financial Research of IIM Udaipur. He has more than four decades of work experience, including  in the Reserve Bank of India, the International Monetary Fund (IMF) and Ministry of Finance (Department of Financial Services). Janak Raj served as an Executive Director in the Reserve Bank of India and as a member of its statutory Monetary Policy Committee (MPC). He also served as Principal Adviser of Monetary Policy Department and International Department of the RBI and headed its Department of Economic Policy and Research. At the IMF Washington DC, he was Senior Advisor to the Executive Director for Bangladesh, Bhutan, India and Sri Lanka. He served as an RBI nominee director on the Governing Board of the BSE (formerly Bombay Stock Exchange) and as a Senior Consultant in the Department of Financial Services, Ministry of Finance. He holds a PhD in Economics from IIT Bombay.

Renu Kohli

Renu Kohli is an economist with research and practitioner experience on macroeconomic policies and issues. She has previously worked with the RBI, the IMF and thinktanks including ICRIER and the Institute of Economic Growth. Her work has focused on financial sector liberalization, capital flows and exchange rate management in emerging markets with special India focus, international macroeconomic coordination, and recently, the macroeconomic impact of decarbonization in India. She has been published in refereed journals such as the Review of Development Economics, Journal of Development Studies, Journal of Asian Economics, Oxford University Press, IMF Working Papers, RBI Staff papers, and contributed to edited volumes. She has exposure to multilateral surveillance including Article IV missions; as short-term expert with IMF Institute, her training missions include courses on financial programming & policies and macroeconomic diagnostics. Dr. Kohli has wider engagement with the private financial sector and investors through talks, presentations and consultation on Indian macroeconomic policies. She also serves as an independent director on the board of NCML Ltd and NFIN.

All content reflects the individual views of the speakers. The Centre for Social and Economic Progress (CSEP) does not hold an institutional view on any subject.

Please contact Gurmeet Kaur at GKaur@csep.org for general queries and Ayesha Manocha at AManocha@csep.org for media queries.