Ram Sewak Sharma

Ram Sewak Sharma is an Indian bureaucrat and former civil servant. From February 2021, he is serving as the Chief Executive Officer of the National Health Authority, an Indian governmental organisation tasked with managing public health insurance till February 2023.[1] Previously, he has headed the Telecom Regulatory Authority of India, and the Unique Identification Authority of India.

Ram Sewak Sharma
Dr. R.S. Sharma, CEO, NHA
CEO, National Health Authority
In office
1 February 2021 – 1 February 2023
Preceded byIndu Bhushan
Chairman, Telecom Regulatory Authority of India
In office
20 August 2015 – 30 September 2020
Preceded byRahul Khullar
Succeeded byPD Vaghela
Director General, Unique Identification Authority of India
In office
31 July 2009 – 31 March 2013
Succeeded byVijay Madan
Personal details
NationalityIndian
Occupationcivil servant

Early life and education

Born in a small village of Uttar Pradesh, he completed his early education from schools near his village. He joined University of Allahabad from where he earned his Bachelor of Science (BSc). He completed his masters in Mathematics from IIT, Kanpur, in 1978.[2] While on leave from the Government of India, he earned a Masters in Computer Science from University of California, Riverside in 2002[3] and subsequently a PhD from IIT, Delhi.[4]

Career

Ram Sewak Sharma joined the Indian Administrative Service (IAS) in 1978.He belongs to the Jharkhand cadre.[5] In 1986, he wrote a program in DBASE, a programming language that would keep a record of all stolen firearms in the crime-prone district. As soon as a firearm would be found, the programme would run a search query among thousands of age-old records. This software enabled the solving of 22 cases in just 30 days.[6]

He held responsibilities in his home cadre of Jharkhand as well as in ministries of the Central government, including, as Secretary, Department of Electronics and Information Technology and Chief Secretary of Jharkhand .[5]

UIDAI

As the first Director General of the Unique Identification Authority of India, he helped create the 12-digit identity number, called Aadhaar, which is available to all eligible residents in India. He has authored a book titled The Making of Aadhaar: World's Largest Identity Platform (ISBN 9390356121) describing this project.[7]

TRAI

He was appointed the Chairman of Telecom Regulatory Authority of India (TRAI) from August 2015 for a period of three years. At the end of this tenure, he was given a further extension of two years.[8] As Chairman of TRAI, he steered the adoption of net neutrality regulations in India. He has taken measures to enable consumer choice in determining market outcomes, e.g. a new framework for broadcasting and cable services,[9] regulations for mobile number portability,[10] and the use of crowd-sourced information or field measurements to inform customers[11] As the TRAI chairman, his goal to gradually reduce Interconnect Usage Charges earned him acclaim from some and criticism from others. Critics allege that the decision is biased towards Jio while those defending TRAI claim that reducing these charges was necessary for the continuous growth of the sector.[12]

CoWIN

He is the chairperson of an empowered committee for administration of Covid-19 vaccine delivery technology platform (Co-WIN).[13][14] CoWIN along with the national Covid-19 vaccination campaign was launched by the Prime Minister on January 16, 2021. Dr. Sharma was called back from retirement to take the responsibility of developing and executing the CoWIN or the Covid-19 Vaccine Intelligence Network.[15] India crossed a mark of administering 2 billion vaccinations in July, 2022.[16] The country also signed an MoU with the government of the Co-operative Republic of Guyana for sharing CoWIN.[17]

Dr. Sharma also served on the National Expert Group on Vaccine Administration for COVID-19, a body constituted by the Government of India to tackle the Covid-19 pandemic in India.[18]

NHA

In February 2021, Sharma was appointed as the Chief Executive Officer of the National Health Authority of India, a body responsible for implementing two health initiatives of the Government of India, Ayushman Bharat Jan Arogya Yojana (AB PM-JAY) which is a public health insurance scheme and Ayushman Bharat Digital Mission, a platform to promote digitization of healthcare in India and served the office till February 2023.[19][20][21]

Controversies

In 2018, Sharma dismissed concerns regarding privacy and potential misuse of India's national biometric ID, and disclosed his Aadhar number on twitter, challenging users to “do any harm to me.” and stating that the purpose of the challenge was "... to debunk the theory that Aadhaar compromises the privacy of the person.”[22][23] Following this, individual researchers were able to locate his personal address, the number of the mobile phone he used as well as an alternate phone number that he used, his Whatsapp profile picture, his voter identification card and his tax identification card (PAN card). Sharma dismissed these disclosures on Twitter, stating that the information could not be used to harm him.[22][24] The information was used to make a symbolic deposit of ₹1 in one of his bank accounts, to demonstrate the potential for misuse.[25] The UIDAI made a statement indicating that this personal information concerning Mr. Sharma was already in the public domain.[26] In December 2020, Sharma's Aadhar number was used to fraudulently register him for an agricultural benefit scheme, the PM Kisan Yojana, as a result of which benefits that he was not eligible for were deposited into his account. Sharma has blamed the state government for failing to conduct adequate verification.[27]

Awards
  • Prime Minister’s Awards for Excellence in Public Administration - 2008

References
  1. "Government of India, Ministry of Health and Family Welfare notification" (PDF).
  2. Jain, Akshai (1 January 2010). "Ram Sewak Sharma | A different drummer". Mint. Retrieved 1 April 2013.
  3. "Ram Sewak Sharma | University of California, Riverside - Academia.edu". ucriverside.academia.edu. Retrieved 13 March 2020.
  4. Pandey, Navadha. "R.S. Sharma, outspoken Trai chairman with a flair for technology, retires today". Mint. Retrieved 2 March 2021.
  5. "Complete Biodata". Ministry of Personnel. Government of India. Retrieved 2 March 2021.
  6. Julka, Harsimran (20 July 2010). "UID will give mobile identity to people". The Economic Times. Retrieved 1 April 2013.
  7. "'Making of Aadhaar' — new book presents candid, first-hand account of how the ID was created". The Print. Retrieved 2 March 2021.
  8. "R S Sharma re-appointed TRAI chairperson till 2020". Business Line. Hindu. Retrieved 2 March 2021.
  9. "Regulation and Amendment". Telecom Regulatory Authority of India. Retrieved 13 March 2020.
  10. "Mobile Number Portability". Telecom Regulatory Authority of India. Retrieved 13 March 2020.
  11. "TRAI Analytics". analytics.trai.gov.in. Retrieved 13 March 2020.
  12. Block, Daniel. "How Reliance Jio is monopolising the telecom sector". The Caravan. Retrieved 21 May 2019.
  13. Mookerji, Nivedita (9 January 2021). "RS Sharma, former Trai chief, to head empowered panel for Covid-19 vaccine". www.business-standard.com. Retrieved 11 August 2022.
  14. "Government of India, Cabinet Secretariat notification" (PDF).
  15. "The CoWIN story started with the pandemic, but it won't end with it".
  16. "India crosses 200 crore Covid-19 vaccinations: Day to remember forever, says Health Minister Mansukh Mandaviya". The Indian Express. 17 July 2022. Retrieved 11 August 2022.
  17. Perappadan, Bindu Shajan (23 July 2022). "CoWIN platform 'know-how' now available free of cost to any country". The Hindu. ISSN 0971-751X. Retrieved 11 August 2022.
  18. "COVID-19 Vaccine Rollout". pib.gov.in. Retrieved 11 August 2022.
  19. "Government of India, Ministry of Health and Family Welfare notification" (PDF).
  20. Mookerji, Nivedita (28 January 2021). "Indu Bhushan to leave as Ayushman Bharat chief, R S Sharma to take over". www.business-standard.com. Retrieved 10 August 2022.
  21. "ABDM will aid universal health coverage in accessible, affordable, timely manner: R S Sharma". Moneycontrol. Retrieved 11 August 2022.
  22. "TRAI chief's Aadhar dare backfires, personal details put online". The Hindu. 29 July 2018. ISSN 0971-751X. Retrieved 14 December 2020.
  23. "TRAI chief's Aadhaar challenge decoded: Why R S Sharma gave out his Aadhaar number". The Financial Express. 31 July 2018. Retrieved 14 December 2020.
  24. "Personal details of TRAI chief RS Sharma 'leaked' after open challenge on Twitter". Tech2. 29 July 2018. Retrieved 14 December 2020.
  25. Rachel Chitra (30 July 2018). "Hackers deposit Re 1 in Trai chief's account | India News - Times of India". The Times of India. Retrieved 14 December 2020.
  26. "Trai chief's personal details not taken from Aadhaar database: UIDAI". Hindustan Times. 29 July 2018. Retrieved 14 December 2020.
  27. Yasmin Ahmed (14 December 2020). "Former UIDAI chief RS Sharma suffers Aadhaar fraud, Rs 6000 PM Kisan fund deposited in his account". India Today. Retrieved 14 December 2020.
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