Dr. Ramesh Chand is a renowned Indian agricultural economist and a policy maker of repute. Over the last three decades, he has been actively involved in food and nutritional security related agricultural issues. Since 2015, he is a Member, National Institution for Transforming India (NITI) Aayog in the rank of Union Minister of State, Government of India. NITI Aayog, formerly known as the Planning Commission of India, is a policy think-tank, chaired by the Prime Minister of India. In this position, Dr. Chand is directly steering India’s agricultural development agenda with major focus on food and nutrition security. He is also providing policy related inputs to the Ministries both of the Central and State Governments concerning land and water resources, SDGs, poverty alleviation, forest and environment, sustainable livelihood, smallholder development, food processing, value chain and agricultural marketing.
Dr. Chand is currently responsible for India’s vision, strategy and action agenda for the agriculture sector, including the government’s flagship agricultural program for doubling farmers’ income.
He was a Member of the Fifteenth Finance Commission of India, which determines devolution of tax resources between the Union Government and the States and recommends fiscal consolidation roadmap; he is also serving as Vice Chairman, Commission on Farmers’ Prosperity, State of Uttar Pradesh, India.

Dr. Ramesh Chand holds Bachelor’s and Master’s degrees in Agriculture from Punjab Agricultural University, Ludhiana and a Ph.D. in Agricultural Economics from Indian Agricultural Research Institute, New Delhi.