Rohit Kansal is a senior Indian Administrative Service (IAS) officer (1995 batch) and a globally engaged policy leader with over three decades of experience in designing and delivering large-scale public transformation across rural development, sustainability, and industrial systems. He currently serves as Secretary to the Government of India in the Department of Rural Development, where he leads national efforts to expand rural infrastructure, strengthen livelihoods, and build resilient, market-linked local economies. His work focuses on translating policy into scalable systems that drive inclusive growth and institutional capacity at scale. As Additional Secretary in the Ministry of Textiles (2022–2025), he led India’s ESG agenda for the sector, shaping strategies to position the country as a global hub for sustainable textiles and climate-resilient supply chains. He has earlier held senior roles across trade, clean energy, and infrastructure, bringing a cross-sectoral lens to development and industrial policy. Mr. Kansal also has extensive on-ground governance experience in complex environments, particularly in Jammu & Kashmir, where he led key administrative and development initiatives in a complex and challenging environment. He is known for driving innovative, citizen-centric programmes, including the Back to Village initiative, and for conceptualizing large-scale platforms such as the Bharat Tex, the global mega-textile event. He has also been actively engaged in global policy dialogue and knowledge platforms. He has been invited by institutions such as the International Renewable Energy Agency, World Intellectual Property Organization, and the Clean Energy Ministerial, and has been the Sherpa in the United Nations Secretary General’s Sustainable Energy for All (SE4ALL) initiative. In his talks at institutions in the Asia Pacific and beyond, he has brought to global platforms a practitioner’s perspective on inclusive development, state capacity, and the interface between sustainability and economic growth. Mr. Kansal has been trained at the London School of Economics, the Indian Institute of Management Calcutta, and the Thapar Institute of Engineering and Technology. He is a Fellow of the Ananta Aspen Centre and an Emerging Leaders Fellow of the Australia-India Institute at the University of Melbourne.