National Council of Applied Economic Research

The genesis of the institution can be traced back to 1956, when the Indian experience in building up data bases relevant to the economy was just being given a firm foundation. T. T. Krishnamachari, then a Minister in Union Cabinet, held talks with Douglas Ensminger, the Ford Foundation’s head for India, to discuss the broad outline of a plan to set up an institution of economic research to get independent and reliable data and analysis for establishing priorities, allocating resources and evaluating performance. He then wrote to J. R. D. Tata with his idea for "an institute for research on economic and industrial problems." J. R. D. accepted the offer of becoming a sponsor.

The first meeting of the Governing Body of the Council for Industrial and Economic Research (as it was originally called) was held in the office of the then Planning Commission’s Deputy Chairman, V. T. Krishnamachari, in May 1956. At this meeting, C. D. Deshmukh, Union Finance Minister, who was also the first Indian Governor of the Reserve Bank of India, proposed that Parliamentarians be approached for the adoption of a resolution describing the proposed Council as a 'Centre of national importance.' Apart from T. T. Krishnamachari, J. R. D. Tata, V. T. Krishnamachari, and C. D. Deshmukh, NCAER founder’s panel also included John Matthai, the first Finance Minister of the Republic of India, Chairman of State Bank of India, Vice-Chancellor of Bombay University, and also a distinguished economist; N. R. Pillai, the first Cabinet Secretary of independent India; J. F. Sinclair, a technocrat who headed India’s premier private sector oil giant at that time, the Burma Shell Company, and, Asoka Mehta, a Member of Parliament and distinguished economist.    

In August 1956, P. S. Lokanathan was designated as the first Director General of the Council and name of the institution was changed to its present name, the National Council of Applied Economic Research.

Summarize Timeline Fact Check

The first Governing Board of NCAER included all Economics Ministers and leading lights of the private sector, such as C. D. Deshmukh, J. R. D. Tata, John Matthai, N. R. Pillai, J. F. Sinclair, and Asoka Mehta. Since then, its Governing Body have included almost every prominent Indian economist, policy maker, and industry leaders, including former Prime Minister Manmohan Singh as a member during 1976–82, and Ratan Tata as President during 1994–98. The current Governing Body of NCAER is headed by Nandan M. Nilekani, Non-Executive Chairman of the Infosys Board Bengaluru, former Chairman, Unique Identification Authority of India, New Delhi, and Co-Founder and former CEO, Infosys Ltd.

NCAER Governing Board:

• Nandan M. Nilekani (President)
• Manish Sabharwal (Vice-President)
• Mukesh D. Ambani (Member)
• Ashish Dhawan (Member)
• Deepak S. Parekh (Member)
• Ajay Seth (Member)
• Anuradha Thakur (Member)
• Ireena Vittal (Member)
• Sanjiv Puri (Member)
• Anil Rai Gupta (Member)
• Falguni Nayar (Member)
• Sandeep Singhal (Member)
• Anil K. Sharma (Secretary to the NCAER Governing Body)

Former NCAER Presidents:

• John Matthai (1956—59)
• V. T. Krishnamachari (1959—1964)
• Asoka Mehta (1964—1981)
• Prakash Tandon (1981—1992)
• Bimal Jalan (1992—1994)
• Lovraj Kumar (1993—1994)
• Ratan N. Tata (1994—1998)
• Bimal Jalan (1998—2008)

Since July 2021, the Director General of NCAER is Poonam Gupta, who is also a member of the Economic Advisory Council to the Prime Minister (EAC-PM). Before joining NCAER, she was Lead Economist, Global Macro and Market Research, International Finance Corporation (IFC); and Lead Economist for India at the World Bank. Her prior appointments include the Reserve Bank of India Chair Professor at National Institute of Public Finance and Policy (NIPFP); Professor at Indian Council for Research on International Economics Relations (ICRIER); Associate Professor, Department of Economics, Delhi School of Economics; and, Economist at the International Monetary Fund.

Former Director Generals of NCAER:

• P. S. Lokanathan (1956—1967)
• S. Boothalingam (1967—1974)
• M. V. Mathur (1974—1975)
• P. L. Tandon (1975—1981)
• I. Z. Bhatty (1981—1990)
• S. L. Rao (1990—1996)
• Rakesh Mohan (1996—2000)
• Suman Bery (2001—2011)
• Shekhar Shah (2011—2021)
• Poonam Gupta (2021—2025)

The Research Advisory Board of NCAER includes eminent research and policy practitioners and academics. The Board is headed by Dr Surjit Bhalla, Executive Director for India, Sri Lanka, Bangladesh, and Bhutan at the IMF and NCAER Governing Body member.

NCAER Research Advisory Board Members:

• Surjit S. Bhalla (Chair)
• Junaid Ahmed (Member)
• Sonalde Desai (Member)
• Indermit Gill (Member)
• Neelkanth Mishra (Member)
• Arvind Panagariya (Member)
• Nirvikar Singh (Member)

Scholars and policy makers include Former Finance Secretary and Deputy Governor of Reserve Bank of India, Rakesh Mohan; Deputy Governor of Reserve Bank of India Subir Gokarn; Members of the Economic Council Advisory of the Prime Minister Rakesh Mohan, Suman Bery, and Poonam Gupta; Member of RBI’s Monetary Policy Committee Shashanka Bhide, NCAER’s faculty. Senior Faculty members of NCAER have been routinely involved in contributing to national and state-level policymaking through their direct participation in government nominated committees, commissions, and task forces. A few faculty members have also been senior newspaper editors and columnists.

NCAER’s research is organized around the following thematic areas:

• National Growth & Macroeconomic Centre;
• Human Development & Data Innovation;
• Investor Education and Protection Fund Chair Unit;
• Computable General Equilibrium Modelling and Policy Analysis;
• States, Sectors, Surveys, and Impact Evaluation;
• Agriculture, Industry, Trade, Technology & Skills;
• Centre for Health Policy and Systems;
• Centre for Gender and Macroeconomy; and
• Centre for States Economic Growth (CSEG).

NCAER faculty generate and analyze empirical evidence to support and inform public policy choices in these areas. In 2017, NCAER established the NCAER National Data Innovation Centre. This Centre primarily serves as a laboratory for experiments in data collection, interfacing with partners in think tanks, Indian and international universities, and government.

NCAER’s future agenda includes providing research and evidence based policy solutions in helping to understand India’s rapid economic and social transformation as newer and more complex economic challenges emerge.

They also feature a scholarly journal in collaboration with Sage Publications called Margin: The Journal of Applied Economic Research.

Established in 2004, the India Policy Forum (IPF) is the National Council of Applied Economic Research's (NCAER) annual conference focused on empirical economic research. The event is attended by policymakers and academic researchers to discuss current economic challenges in India. The proceedings are published in the India Policy Forum journal, which focuses on Indian economic policy.

The annual C.D. Deshmukh Memorial Lecture at NCAER was instituted in 2013 to honour the memory of one of India’s most eminent economists and a founding father of NCAER. Chintaman Dwarakanath Deshmukh was the first Indian to be appointed Governor of the Reserve Bank of India in 1943, was part of the official Indian delegation to the 1944 Bretton Woods Conference that led to the creation of the World Bank and the International Monetary Fund, and served as Governor of RBI until 1949. He served as the Union Finance Minister during 1950 to 1956 and was a founding member of NCAER’s first Governing Body in 1956. The most recent C.D. Deshmukh Lecture titled, ‘The Global Economic Outlook 2021: Averting a Great Divergence’ was delivered by the Chief Economist at the IMF, Gita Gopinath in 2021.

NCAER in collaboration with National Bureau of Economic Research (NBER) started the Neemrana Conference in 1999 to create a forum that focuses on important economic policy issues and brings together prominent policymakers, regulators, industry leaders, and academic luminaries from the best think tanks and universities from India and the US working on policy matters around the world. The informal, off-the-record conversations around complex policy topics remains the hallmark of this one-of-a-kind forum, which has made it as one of the most anticipated events in winter. NCAER organized all Neemrana Conferences for a decade during the period from 1999 to 2007 and was later joined in 2008 by ICRIER as the second Indian partner. Since then NCAER and ICRIER have organized these conference alternatively – one year NCAER and one year ICRIER.

Lectures, conferences, seminars, webinars, and symposia are held regularly, which are attended by a large number of eminent academics, policymakers, and researchers within and outside NCAER.