RS Sharma’s tenure as NHA chief ends

Dr Ram Sewak Sharma, the chief executive officer of the government’s National Health Authority (NHA), which operates the country’s flagship public health insurance scheme Ayushman Bharat, has stepped down from his position after his tenure ended on January 31.

Taking to Twitter, Dr Sharma stated, “As my tenure at @AyushmanNHA ends today, I am happy to share that we are set on a transformational journey in India’s healthcare service delivery. It has been my privilege to be a part of AB PM-JAY & #ABDM which aims to make healthcare affordable, accessible & available for all.”

When asked about his future plans, Sharma told Moneycontrol, “I have no plans for future. However, for immediate and near future, I am going to my village and will relax on a khatia, in the field!!”

Sharma is considered to be among the tech-savvy bureaucrats who helped build India’s digital public goods infrastructure. He was the first director general of the Unique Identification Authority of India (UIDAI), the government body that operates the Aadhaar database. As the DG in the early days of UIDAI, he was instrumental not only in accelerating the adoption of Aadhaar, but also had to face tough questions from the public on its security and efficacy.

Next, he was appointed as the chairman of TRAI in 2015 when the debates about net neutrality were raging. It was around this time when programme like Facebook Free Basics and Airtel Zero were launched. But, Sharma nixed them as he believed it would hurt the growth of the digital economy.

“No one owns Internet… so, it should be open and accessible to everyone,” he once said, suggesting that service providers should not indulge in gate-keeping of the internet.

He had an eventful tenure at TRAI till 2020, which also included him overseeing important changes in the telecom industry such as cutting interconnection user charges by half.

When Covid struck, he was once again entrusted with the responsibility to head a technology task force for the smooth delivery of vaccines. Sharma used his Aadhaar experience to craft the CoWin application that was again lauded as a successful digital public good. Following this, he was made the chief executive officer of the National Health Authority to spearhead the digitisation of India’s public healthcare.

In this role, the techie bureaucrat has presided over the creation of the United Health Interface, a platform that would allow healthcare services providers, doctors and patients to seamlessly work with each other. Still in its early days, it is expected to be the ‘UPI’ of health.

Sharma also serves on the board of the Open Network for Digital Commerce (ONDC), a government-backed initiative that seeks to add Rs 3.75 lakh crore to India’s e-commerce sales via an interoperable network of buyer-side platforms, seller-side platforms, logistics players, and creditors.

Before joining the Bihar cadre as an Indian Administrative Service officer, Sharma graduated with a Masters degree in mathematics from IIT Kanpur. He is said to have learnt coding to create software that tracked weapons obtained illegally by criminal gangs from the police.

When Jharkhand was created at the turn of the millennium, Sharma took a transfer to the cadre of the new state. Later, he received a Masters in computer science from the US and a PhD from IIT Delhi. Moneycontrol