Pradip is a rural development professional with over 11 years of experience in technical, strategic advisory, leadership and facilitating role at varied seniority levels. He has worked for various cross thematic community and rural development projects involving government, international and CSR investments in multi-collaborative settings in many backward regions in India. His expertise lies in the domain of financial inclusion and micro enterprise finance. He is passionate about creating long term impact with his actions to build resilient rural communities.
LinkedIn – www.linkedin.com/in/pradipdas125
Facebook – https://www.facebook.com/baba.aba
Email – [email protected]
Q. How has been your journey from IIFM so far?
A. My journey from IIFM has been incredibly transformative and enriching. I have worked for government, nonprofits, corporate foundation and multilateral organization. I started with CEE (Centre for Environment Education) at New Delhi by accepting a pre placement offer. In CEE, I mostly worked with NGOs supporting them in designing and implementing projects for a multilateral fund – GEF (Global Environment Facility). During this time, I also got a chance to work closely with UNDP and MOEFCC officials. Within this organization I switched place of posting and started working on a rural development project that too at a block level – more details about this later!
After few years I joined UPSRLM (Uttar Pradesh State Rural Livelihood Mission) at Lucknow and could experience first-hand how a government department functions. In UPSRLM my role was to develop state level policies and programs, devise implementation strategies and ensure rolling out of special projects. After this, I accepted an opportunity to work for another wonderful project with CRISIL Foundation, that too in my home state – Assam. The project owned CSR Award 2018, which was evaluated by our professor (Parul Rishi Ma’am), for all the good works done by my previous colleagues.
And currently for about 2.5 years I am a part of the World Bank team, where I work for one of its flagship rural development projects of India – NRETP. It is under a partnership between The World Bank and the GOI. I joined the World Bank as a Resident Representative to ASRLM (Assam State Rural Livelihoods Mission) and my primary role was to provide technical support across different thematic verticals of NRETP to the client. After around 1.3 years of working in that role, I came down to New Delhi to work with the central team here.
Q. What were some of the key milestones/learning in this journey that you would like to share with us?
A. During my initial years with CEE, I got chance to work at a block level to lead a project which exposed me to the real life challenges that exists in rural India and how the political, government and other local bodies work in confluence to shape the rural economy. This firsthand experience has immensely helped me to understand ground realities and discern between theory and practicality. Most importantly, I learned to recruit and manage teams, set real expectations across varied stakeholders, design and implement rural development projects in coordination with the government. Another important milestone was working closely with many senior bureaucrats, during UPSRLM (also in present time), which taught me to navigate and understand the bureaucratic system, envisage and manage population scale projects (while not losing patience) and most importantly learned to appreciate the system as opposed to my previous views.
Q. What is the most satisfying part in your career?
A. Although, there are many satisfying parts which makes me feel gratified, but to mention one is that I get to work closely with rural communities and work for their betterment providing a meaning to my work and purpose in life. I remember during my initial project, when I was posted in a block, I was trying to introduce smokeless chulahs (stoves) in the rural households. The stove came with a cost to which households were initially reluctant to invest. Later when few households started using it, other households also slowly followed them and we got almost everyone on board and then came a wonderful feedback from the women members of the villages later on that, they now have to struggle less with the fuelwoods and smoke. Such experiences are the primary driving force in my career.
Q. Has your learning at IIFM helped in shaping how you approach your professional roles?
A. Yes, very much! It laid a solid foundation for my career in rural development with its unique blend of management and community development subjects. This interdisciplinary program has equipped me with comprehensive understanding of management principles with a community development angle and enabled me to use them in all my roles. Apparently, it provided a fantastic platform through which I could have access to many great people which otherwise would not have been possible.
Q. Who (or what) are the biggest influences or drivers in your careers? What would be your advice to freshers and IIFM graduates who are looking to choose similar sectors/roles.
A. I believe staying unidirectional and consistent is a key. Developing nuanced understanding of any particular sector and building on critical thinking abilities right from the beginning is important. It’s important to have mentor(s) from the targeted sector.
Q. What are your favourite memories during your IIFM days?
A. I loved to play guitar and sing at IIFM during any cultural events. I never gained confidence to do the same before I joined IIFM, but I believe my batchmates along with immediate seniors and juniors have been very kind and generous to me on letting me play and sing during cultural events. Apart from this I have many other favourite memories which ranges from roaming across in the campus and the city, celebrating mid night birthdays, late night jamming, long distance bike rides, going to track in the caves down the hill in the midnight, field trips to national parks etc.
Q. In hindsight, what was the biggest contribution or take away from IIFM that you think played a critical role in shaping you as an individual or professional?
A. The exposure that I have received during my internship was a breakthrough. Along with the entire course the internship has provided me with clear direction where I want to be in long run. Various courses like, Quantitative Techniques (although I topped from the bottom in the first term), Economics, Research, Climate change, Sustainable development & Society and Polity, has contributed tremendously to shape my perspectives.
Q. The best buddies / seniors /faculty at IIFM? Some memorable tidbits that you like to share?
A. I enjoyed talking to all in the campus so it’s difficult to list the names. All Professors were excellent, but I can very vividly remember the classes of Prof. Chinmaya Singh Rathod, Prof. Bhaskar Sinha, Prof. Yogesh Dubey. However, there was agony associated with the Quantitative Techniques classes, and I think we all know the reason. Me and my roommate Praveen were both late risers and we will always plan that next morning we will wake up a little early, but never saw that light of the day and will always reach the morning classes at the last moment!
Q. As an alumni, what’s your advice to freshers or those are joining IIFM to get best out of the 2 years there?
A. Be genuinely super curious about everything around, participate in events and network as much as possible. Focus on building good relationships with seniors, juniors, faculty members and try to have mentors from the very beginning as that makes a huge difference. Sleep less in class, so that there is no need to spend much time studying back at hostel! Enjoy the campus, once you are out, you will always miss it and crave for time when you would want to be there again.
Q. What was your typical day at the work?
A. From 2018 to 2022, I worked from home and from end of 2022 onwards I am working from office regularly. Will leave for office at around 8.30 am in the morning and will reach back home by 7.30 in the evening. And many a times there is also travel heavy months. During office hours – meetings with various stakeholders (physical setting or online), doing reviews with states, preparing reports and doing data analysis, connecting with senior colleagues to discuss about the ongoing developments in projects, etc. are regular activities.
Q. And how about weekends, hobbies, family and anything else you want to add?
A. Me, my wife and my cute little daughter stay together in New Delhi. During the weekends, I truly wish to stay at home and meander, and would want to do nothing at all, but would end up completing some personal work, going to some nearby places or meeting friends.
Q. Favorite Books, movies, authors?
A. I am not an avid reader, but currently reading “Why Nations Fail” by Daron Acemoglu & James A. Robinson and “I am Ok, You are ok” by Thomas A Harris M.D. In movies, I love science fiction (eg. Matrix, Inception), dystopian (eg. maze runner), Indian Comedy and Drama, social science fiction (eg. The Platform) etc.
Q. IIFM is driven by alumni’s passion and commitments towards its goal. How would you like to contribute to IIFM or IIFM alumni, students? Your engagement with IIFM Placement or OT/SI?
A. I would be happy to be available for onetime/regular mentorship to any interested students/junior batches and help them gain clarity for the rural development and consulting sector. Further, I can be a conduit for networking with relevant people across the sector. Placement and summer internship options if I come across would be more than happy to bring it to the students as like I did quite a few times in the past.
Q. What do you think is different at IIFM now vs when you studied there?
A. Most prominently the Alumni association has been able to connect seniors and juniors alike and have been able to minimize the gaps between the students and even the senior most alumni. During our time we started by creating a data base of as many alumni as possible and always wanted to know more details about them, but now we get to read “IIFMight in Focus” every week which is really great to connect with each other.
Q. Any suggestions on who you want to get profiled/interviewed here?
A. Few names to suggest are – Pulak Yadav (2012), Subhadip Mahalanabish (2012), Chayan Bandopadhyay (2012), Sunpreet Kaur (2009), Shivanshu Sharma (2013), Srashti Singhal (2012).