N C Saxena
Author of ‘What Ails the IAS and Why It Fails to Deliver?’ and Distinguished Fellow, SKOCH Development Foundation
Poverty alleviation, ensuring that women get their due in land rights, access to education, water and livelihoods to marginalised are among the key focus areas of work championed by Naresh Chandra Saxena, former Secretary to the Government of India and former Member, National Advisory Council. He was one of the architects of National Rural Employment Guarantee Act (NREGA). He monitors hunger-based programmes in India on behalf of the Supreme Court of India. He has chaired several government committees, such as on ‘Women’s Land Rights’, ‘Identification of poor families’, ‘Implementation of Forest Rights Act’, ‘Joint Review Mission on Elementary Education’ and ‘Bauxite Mining in Odisha’. An illustrious author, Saxena was the topper of his batch in the Indian Administrative Service (IAS), which he joined in 1964.