Rajeev Sadanandan (born 28 May 1959) is a former Indian

bureaucrat A bureaucrat is a member of a bureaucracy and can compose the administration of any organization of any size, although the term usually connotes someone within an institution of government. The term ''bureaucrat'' derives from "bureaucracy", wh ...

from the

Kerala Kerala ( , ) is a States and union territories of India, state on the Malabar Coast of India. It was formed on 1 November 1956, following the passage of the States Reorganisation Act, by combining Malayalam-speaking regions of the erstwhile ...

cadre of the

Indian Administrative Service The Indian Administrative Service (IAS) is the Public administration, administrative arm of the All India Services of Government of India. The IAS is one of the three All India Services along with the Indian Police Service (IPS) and the Indian ...

and a

healthcare Health care, or healthcare, is the improvement or maintenance of health via the preventive healthcare, prevention, diagnosis, therapy, treatment, wikt:amelioration, amelioration or cure of disease, illness, injury, and other disability, physic ...

policy-maker. He has been working and researching in the area of health systems, policy and financing for over two decades. He has been involved with the health system of the state of Kerala and has been active in health sector reforms in the state. After serving as the

Additional Chief Secretary The Chief Secretary is the highest-ranking executive official and civil servant of the government of an Indian state. The Chief Secretary is the ''ex-officio'' head of the state Civil Services Board, the State Secretariat, the state cadre Indi ...

, taking care of the Department of Health and Family Welfare, he took over as the Chief Executive Officer of Health Systems Transformation Platform (HSTP), funded by the Tata Trusts.

Early life

Rajeev Sadanandan did his schooling from

Sainik School Kazhakootam Sainik School Kazhakootam, Thiruvananthapuram, Kerala, India, is a residential school under the Ministry of Defence, Government of India, located approximately 18 km away from Thiruvananthapuram city beside Kazhakoottam - Venjarammoodu byp ...

, and later went on to do a

Master of Arts A Master of Arts ( or ''Artium Magister''; abbreviated MA or AM) is the holder of a master's degree awarded by universities in many countries. The degree is usually contrasted with that of Master of Science. Those admitted to the degree have ...

English English usually refers to: * English language * English people English may also refer to: Culture, language and peoples * ''English'', an adjective for something of, from, or related to England * ''English'', an Amish ter ...

from

University of Kerala University of Kerala (formerly known as University of Travancore) is a state-run public university in Thiruvananthapuram, the state capital of Kerala, India. It was established in 1937 by a promulgation of the Maharajah of Travancore, Chithi ...

. Later, he completed his

Master of Philosophy A Master of Philosophy (MPhil or PhM; Latin ' or ') is a postgraduate degree. The name of the degree is most often abbreviated MPhil (or, at times, as PhM in other countries). MPhil are awarded to postgraduate students after completing at leas ...

Applied economics Applied economics is the application of economic theory and econometrics in specific settings. As one of the two sets of fields of economics (the other set being the ''core''), it is typically characterized by the application of the ''core'', i.e ...

from

Centre for Development Studies The Centre for Development Studies (CDS), Thiruvananthapuram, Kerala, India is a premier Social Science research institute. It is also a higher education institution providing M.A. course in applied economics and PhD course in economics. The i ...

Thiruvananthapuram Thiruvananthapuram ( ), also known as Trivandrum, is the Capital city, capital city of the Indian state of Kerala. As of 2011, the Thiruvananthapuram Municipal Corporation had a population of 957,730 over an area of 214.86 sq. km, making it the ...

Career

Rajeev started his bureaucratic career as the Sub-Collector of

Kollam Kollam (;), is an ancient seaport and the List of cities and towns in Kerala, fourth largest city in the Indian state of Kerala. Located on the southern tip of the Malabar Coast of the Arabian Sea, the city is on the banks of Ashtamudi Lake ...

. After working in various departments in the

Government of Kerala The Government of Kerala (abbreviated as GoK), also known as the Kerala Government, is the administrative body responsible for governing the Indian States and territories of India, state of Kerala. The government is led by a chief minister, who ...

, he served as the

District Collector The district magistrate, also known as the district collector or deputy commissioner, is a career civil servant who serves as the executive head of a district's administration in India. The specific name depends on the state or union territo ...

Malappuram Malappuram (also Malapuram) () is a municipality and town in Kerala and the headquarters of the Malappuram district in Kerala, India. It is the List of most populous urban agglomerations in Kerala, 4th largest urban agglomeration in Kerala and ...

and

Thrissur Thrissur (, ), Renaming of cities in India, formerly Trichur, also known by its historical name Thrissivaperur, is a city and the headquarters of the Thrissur district in Kerala, India. It is the List of most populous urban agglomerations in Ke ...

districts during 1994–96. At

, he piloted a community-based Self-help group program which was aimed at educating and empowering women to improve nutrition, child care, family health and micro-credit societies. This successful pilot—then known as the Malappuram CDS Model—contributed to the launch of state-level Kudumbashree program and the

National Rural Livelihood Mission The National Rural Livelihood Mission (NRLM) is a poverty alleviation project implemented by the Ministry of Rural Development, a branch of the Government of India. This plan is focused on promoting self-employment and the organization of rur ...

at the national level. Multiple stints in various departments in

followed; he then served as a Consultant with

National AIDS Control Organisation The National AIDS Control Organisation (NACO), established in 1992, is a division of India's Ministry of Health and Family Welfare that provides leadership to the HIV/AIDS control programme in India through 35 HIV/AIDS Prevention and Control Soc ...

, National Programme Officer and National Technical Consultant Ftp://solutionexchange-un.net.in/public/aids/cr/cr-se-aids-mch-16020601-public.pdf at

UNAIDS The Joint United Nations Programme on HIV and AIDS (UNAIDS; , ONUSIDA) is the main advocate for accelerated, comprehensive and coordinated global action on the HIV/AIDS pandemic. The mission of UNAIDS is to lead, strengthen and support an ex ...

' India Country Office. During 2007–2010, Rajeev served as the Chairman of

Kerala State Electricity Board Kerala State Electricity Board (KSEB) is an Indian public sector undertaking under the Government of Kerala that generates, transmits and distributes electricity in the state. Established in 1957, the agency comes under the authority of the Po ...

. As the head of Rashtriya Swasthya Bima Yojana (2013–15), he revamped various processes to simplify

health insurance Health insurance or medical insurance (also known as medical aid in South Africa) is a type of insurance that covers the whole or a part of the risk of a person incurring medical expenses. As with other types of insurance, risk is shared among ma ...

access for India's poor. While at Ministry of Rural Development, he headed India's rural housing program—

Indira Awaas Yojana Pradhan Mantri Gramin Aawas Yojana () is a social welfare programme under the Ministry of Rural Development, Government of India, to provide housing for the rural poor in India. A similar scheme for urban poor was launched in 2015 as Housing ...

—and the National Social Assistance Programme (NSAP) aimed at providing financial assistance to the elderly, widows and persons with disabilities in the form of

social pension According to the International Labour Organization, social security is a human right that aims at reducing and preventing poverty and vulnerability throughout the life cycle of individuals. Social security includes different kinds of benefits (mat ...

s. Since 2016, Rajeev, as an Additional Chief Secretary, heads Kerala's Department of Health and Family Welfare—his third stint as the head of this department in

, the earlier stints being 1996–2001 and 2011–2013. He played a key role in controlling the situation during 2018 Nipah virus outbreak in Kerala. During the same year, Kerala was hit by unprecedented rains and floods. The health department under Rajeev played a crucial role in tackling the health situation that followed the

2018 Kerala floods On 16 August 2018, severe floods affected the south Indian state Kerala, due to unusually heavy rainfall during the monsoon season. It was the worst flood in Kerala in nearly a century. Over 483 people died, and about one million people were e ...

. He has served as one of the Commissioners on the Lancet Global Health Commission on Financing Primary Health Care. He is currently the

CEO A chief executive officer (CEO), also known as a chief executive or managing director, is the top-ranking corporate officer charged with the management of an organization, usually a company or a nonprofit organization. CEOs find roles in variou ...

of Tata Trust-funded Health Systems Transformation Platform (HSTP). He was recently selected to the Technical Advisory Panel (TAP) of the

World Bank The World Bank is an international financial institution that provides loans and Grant (money), grants to the governments of Least developed countries, low- and Developing country, middle-income countries for the purposes of economic development ...

's Pandemic Fund.

Publications

# “Costing of focussed interventions among different sub-populations: A Case Study from South Asia”, UNAIDS, 2000 # “Government Health Services in Kerala: Who Benefits?”, Economic and Political Weekly, August, 2001 # “Idle Capacity in Resource Strapped Government Hospitals in Kerala”, Achutha Menon Centre for Health Science Studies, Kerala, 2002 (Co-author) # “Global Health Partnerships: Assessing The Evidence For Impact, India Case Study”, DFID Health Resource Centre, London, 2004 ( Co-author) # “Rogi Kalyan Samitis: A Case Study on Hospital Reforms from Madhya Pradesh, India” in “Reinventing Public Service Delivery in India: Selected Case Studies” (Chand V ed), SAGE Publications, New Delhi. 2006 (Co-Author) # “Practical Guidelines for Intensifying HIV Prevention: Towards Universal Access”, UNAIDS, Geneva, 2007 (Co-Author) # “HIV infected and affected”, Seminar, New Delhi, June, 2007 # “Managing AIDS Control Programmes in India” in “Strategic Issues and Challenges in Health Management” (K. V. Ramani et al ed), SAGE Publications, New Delhi, 2008 # “Final Evaluation Nepal: October 2007 : International HIV/AIDS workplace education programme : SHARE strategic HIV/AIDS responses by enterprises”, International Labour Organisation, Geneva, 2008 # “HIV/AIDS in India — The Response of Government Health Services” (Ritu Priya and Shalini Mehta, Vasudhaiva Kutumbakam Pub (P) Ltd, New Delhi, 2008 # “Health technology assessment in universal health coverage”, Comment in Lancet, Vol 382 December 21/28, 2013 (Co-Author) # “Improving quality for maternal care — a case study from Kerala, India” (Co-Author) # “India’s Largest Hospital Insurance Program Faces Challenges In Using Claims Data To Measure Quality”, Health Affairs, October, 2016. 35:1792-1799 (Co-Author)

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Sadanandan, Rajeev 1959 births Living people Sainik School alumni Indian Administrative Service officers