Plan panel ex-member, top rural economist Abhijit Sen is dead

NEW DELHI: Economist Abhijit Sen, a former Planning Commission member and one of the country's foremost experts on rural economy, passed away on Monday. He was 72.

"He suffered a heart attack around 11pm. We rushed him to the hospital but it was all over by the time we got there," said Pronab Sen, his brother. Sen had been suffering from breathing-related ailments for the past years, which got aggravated during the pandemic, Pronab added.

In a career spanning over four decades, Sen taught economics at Oxford, Cambridge and Jawaharlal Nehru University, and held several key government positions, including the chair of the Commission of Agricultural Cost and Prices.

He was a member of the Planning Commission from 2004 to 2014, when Manmohan Singh was the Prime Minister. In 2010, he was awarded the Padma Bhusan for public service.

When the NDA came to power in 2014, it appointed Sen to head a high level taskforce to frame a "long term grain policy". Sen was a vocal advocate of a universal public distribution system for rice and wheat.

He would argue that the burden of food subsidy on the exchequer was often exaggerated and that the country had enough fiscal headroom to not only support a universal PDS but also guarantee a fair price to farmers for their produce.

Sen had also been associated with global research and multilateral organisations such as the UNDP, Asian Development Bank, Food and Agricultural Organisation of the UN, International Fund for Agricultural Development and OECD Development Centre. He is survived by wife Jayati and daughter Jahnavi.

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