Our Team

Subrat Das, Executive Director

Subrat joined CBGA in December 2002. He is serving as the Executive Director since August 2010, prior to which he worked as the Coordinator for two years. He had earlier been part of the research team at CBGA and worked on India's public policy towards natural disasters, public spending on social sectors, responsiveness of budgets to disadvantaged sections of population and bottlenecks in budgetary processes in the country. He studied Economics at the Centre for Economic Studies and Planning, Jawaharlal Nehru University, New Delhi.

Subrat oversees the planning, implementation and assessment of CBGA's overall strategies. He also directs the organisation's administrative work and manages its partnerships with relevant stakeholders.

Pooja Parvati, Research Coordinator

Pooja is with CBGA since February 2006. She has a BA Hons. in Geography from Miranda House, an MA in Geography from Delhi School of Economics and an M. Phil (Planning and Development) from Indian Institute of Technology, Mumbai. She has been in the development sector since 2002, working on various governance issues and issues relating to gender. She is responsible for coordination of research work by CBGA team. The specific areas of her research in CBGA include government financing of education, planning and budgetary processes in the country at various levels, and gender budgeting. She also contributes significantly to CBGA's efforts pertaining to advocacy and capacity building.

Bhuwan Chand Nailwal

Bhuwan joined CBGA in August 2010. Presently he is working as a Finance and Administration Officer. He is a Commerce graduate from Delhi University. He has a sound grasp of tax compliance, accounting and auditing requirements, having worked with several charted accountants firms over the past five years. Bhuwan takes cares of a number of important tasks relating to our office administration, accounts and auditing.

Harsh Singh Rawat

Harsh is working with us as an Office Assistant since April 2005. Prior to joining CBGA, he had worked for around ten years in various organisations. Harsh plays an important role in ensuring smooth functioning of our office and preparing efficiently for the numerous training workshops, consultations and meetings that we conduct all through the year.

Sumita Gupta

Sumita joined us in March 2008. She is a Commerce graduate from Delhi University and has more than four years of work experience in the field of finance and accounts. She is working with us as an Accounts and Administration Associate with numerous responsibilities pertaining to office administration, accounts and auditing. She also has an important role in ensuring smooth functioning of our office and organization of our training workshops, consultations and meetings.

Tara Rawat, Finance & Admin. Assistant

Tara joined CBGA as an Accounts and Administration Assistant in July 2011. She holds a B.A. degree in Economics from Delhi University and is currently pursuing Company Secretary Professional Programme from the Institute of Company Secretaries of India (ICSI). At CBGA, Tara takes care of several routine finance and administration activities. She is also responsible for the organization's communication and transactions with banks, vendors and service providers.

Bhumika Jhamb

Bhumika joined CBGA in February 2007. She has an MSc in Community Resource Management and Extension from Lady Irwin College, University of Delhi. She is working with us as a Programme Officer, with lead responsibilities for media advocacy, pre-budget advocacy with the Union Government and the People's Budget Initiative. She is also involved in CBGA's research on gender budgeting and other policy issues focusing on women.

Gyana Ranjan Panda

Gyana joined CBGA in August 2007. He has a master's degree in Political Science from Utkal University and an M. Phil in International Relations from Jawaharlal Nehru University. He had earlier worked with the National Centre for Educational Research and Training, doing research on various aspects of education. In CBGA, he has worked on research studies focusing on constraints in utilization of funds in the social sector and budgetary provisions for adaptation to climate change in India. He has led CBGA's work on demystifying the budgets and budgetary processes in other South Asian countries. As a Programme Officer, he leads the organisation's efforts pertaining to advocacy with Members of Parliament.

Kanika Kaul, Programme Officer

Kanika joined CBGA as a Programme Officer in October 2011. She holds a Masters degree in Social Work from Tata Institute of Social Sciences. Before joining CBGA, Kanika was working on strengthening women's political participation with The Hunger Project. She has the lead responsibility in the organization for advocacy with policymakers and capacity building initiatives on budget analysis and advocacy at South Asia level.

Khwaja Mobeen Ur Rehman

Khwaja joined CBGA in September 2004. He is a graduate in Economics from the Jamia Millia Islamia, New Delhi. He also holds a Masters degree in Rural Development from the Indira Gandhi National Open University (IGNOU). He is currently working with us as a Programme Associate. Khwaja has considerable experience in primary data collection, compilation and tabulation; he is supporting a number of in-house programmes in research and advocacy. He also plays an important role in our communication and dissemination activities and in the organization of our workshops, consultations and meetings.

Pooja Rangaprasad

Pooja joined CBGA as a Programme Consultant (for Advocacy and Outreach efforts) in January 2012. She has a Masters in Social Policy and Development from London School of Economics. She has previously worked in the development sector with a wide range of stakeholders such as State legislators, politicians, government officials and civil society focusing on issues related to children. Her work at CBGA focuses on advocacy and outreach efforts on issues relating to tax justice and transparency and accountability in the global financial system.

Priyadarshini Mohanty, Programme Officer

Priyadarshini joined CBGA as a Programme Officer in August 2011. She has an M.A. and M. Phil degree in Anthropology from Utkal University, Odisha. She has been working in the development sector since 2004 and her previous association with organizations like Centre for Youth and Social Development (CYSD), Voluntary Health Association of India (VHAI) and Micro Insurance Academy (MIA) has strengthened her understanding on diverse development issues. Her primary responsibilities in CBGA include coordinating the organization's capacity building programmes at the national level, leading the organization's publication and dissemination efforts and contributing towards its advocacy with legislators.

Jawed A. Khan

Jawed joined CBGA in August 2007. He has done MA and M. Phil in Economics, and has previously worked with the Institute of Social Sciences, New Delhi. Jawed has a lot of experience in field-work based research in areas like fiscal decentralization and utilization of funds in social sector programmes. He is working with us as a Research Officer, focusing on rural development, fiscal decentralisation and responsiveness of budgets to disadvantaged groups like minorities, dalits and adivasis. He also contributes significantly to CBGA's capacity building efforts with CSOs across the country.

Manzoor Ali, Research Consultant

Manzoor joined CBGA as a Research Consultant in August 2011. He has done his M.A. and M. Phil in Political Science from Jawaharlal Nehru University, New Delhi. He has previously worked in UGC-funded research projects and analyzed the issue of political defection of legislators, both at Central and State level, and its impact on the development of States. At CBGA, he is currently doing research on the systemic weakness in the government apparatus in social sectors.

Narendra Jena, Research Consultant

Narendra joined CBGA as a Research Consultant in May 2011. He has done his M. Phil in Economics from the Centre for the Study of Regional Development, Jawaharlal Nehru University, New Delhi. Before Joining CBGA, Narendra had worked as a researcher at the Institute for Studies in Industrial Development (ISID), the Centre for Trade and Development (CENTAD) and the National Institute of Public Finance and Policy (NIPFP), New Delhi. Analyses of public expenditure towards human development, EU-India free trade agreement and regional aspects of industrial development have been his interest areas of research. His area of research in CBGA is mainly around public investments in agriculture and responsiveness of government budgets to climate change.

Neha Hui, Research Consultant

Neha joined CBGA as a Research Consultant in September 2011. She has done her B.A. in Economics from Visvabharati, Santiniketan, M.A. in Economics from Jawaharlal Nehru University and M. Phil in Applied Economics from the Centre for Development Studies, Trivandrum. She has a keen interest in issues of labour and gender economics; she has also done research on sex workers in New Delhi and Kolkata, and gender, governance and rural employment in NREGA. Her primary responsibility in CBGA relates to research on the issues of taxation and other forms of revenue collection especially from the perspective of gender and sustainable development.

Nilachala Acharya

Nilachala is associated with CBGA as a Research consultant. He did his M.Phil in Economics from Berhampur University, Odisha. He possesses an in depth understanding of budgets and relevant institutions at the national and sub-national level in India. His areas of research interest are financing of agriculture, issues relating to food security and issues on transparency in Union and State Budgets in India.

Sakti Golder

Sakti has been with CBGA since October 2005. He has done a BA in Economics from Jadavpur University, Kolkata, and MA and M.Phil from the Centre for Economic Studies and Planning at Jawaharlal Nehru University, New Delhi. Sakti is currently working with us as a Research Officer. He has worked on a number of research studies in CBGA, which pertained to the analysis of public spending on children, issues relating to Centre-State fiscal relations, budgeting for dalits and adivasis, and transparency in the Union Budget of India. At present, his research focuses on government financing of healthcare, budgeting for children and budgetary provisions for social security for unorganised workers.

Sankhanath Bandyopadhyay

Sankhanath joined us as a Research Officer in July 2010. He was earlier a Research Fellow at the Indian Institute of Foreign Trade, New Delhi. He has also worked with the ICFAI Business School in Kolkata. He has done a BSc in Economics from Calcutta University, and MA from the Centre for Economic Studies and Planning at Jawaharlal Nehru University, New Delhi. His research area in CBGA relates to taxation and other sources of receipts for the government.

Saumya Shrivastava, Research Assistant

Saumya joined CBGA as a Research Assistant in July 2011. She has done her M. Sc in Economics from Teri University, specializing in Environmental and Resource Economics. She had also worked as an Intern with CBGA during 2010-11 and carried out research on public investment in Agricultural Research and Education in India since 1990-91. Her current research work in CBGA focuses on gender budgeting and responsiveness of budgets to religious minorities.

Trisha Agarwala

Trisha joined us as a Research Officer in February 2008. She possesses a master's in Sociology from Jawaharlal Nehru University and also holds a diploma in French. She has worked extensively at the grassroots level, in primary data generation and management and project development for monitoring and evaluation of rural development programmes. Her research in CBGA focuses on sectors like, health and water and sanitation. She also has the lead responsibility in our work on government audits.