Abhijeet Sinha is a renowned technocrat, currently serving as the national programme director of Ease of Doing Business at the National Highways for Electric Vehicles, India’s premier agency for piloting emerging technologies, contributing to micro-level tech economies across the states and sectors. He is also principal adviser to the Services Export Promotion Council under the Ministry of Commerce and Industry. He holds additional charges of ambitious programmes and pilot projects, such as DIISHA, drone pilots, Swachh Bharat Mission – Cleantech, ease of living, climate financing and Arthashastra 2.0.
Sinha’s current portfolio involves the introduction of emerging technologies into businesses, which results in building new economies, new markets, new models, and the upgradation of existing ways of doing business.
As per Sinha, “The infrastructure sector is evolving from conventional, traditional patterns to a smarter, connected and greener footprint. This shift requires significant strategic planning to reimagine infrastructure from the perspective of ease of living and ease of doing business. The future demands the use of digital twins, right from the planning stage to post-commissioning operations, enabling infrastructure to be optimised and monetised as assets. This new trend is transforming the dynamics at every stage, from budgeting to investment in infrastructure.”
He adds, “As a first-generation tech piloting agency in India, we work on a very structured mantra: ‘Reform, Perform and Transform’. We assess legacy standards, industry specifications, standard operating procedures, practices, technologies, procurement models and regulatory frameworks from a “reform” perspective, rather than from the perspective of an attorney or a consultant. Once it becomes clear what needs to be reformed to enable new economic opportunities, we bring in stakeholders to “perform” and ensure the delivery of solutions for the public good. “Transformation” starts when new norms, standards, specifications and funding models are piloted and tested through PoC, technical piloting and commercial prototyping. This is how emerging technologies transform a sector.”
Speaking on work ethics, Sinha highlights, “The challenge for me is that, without creating a culture of adopting evidence-based, data-driven policymaking, where we build everything from scratch to uphold, adopt and scale that particular technology, it is not possible for markets to adopt them and accelerate technical upgradations. I aim to imbibe that culture.”
He is a seeker of ancient wisdom and enjoys reading the Arthashastra and learning about scientific innovations.