“In Suresh’s demise, our country has lost one of its most eminent economists. His work on poverty was path breaking and will continue to guide and inspire the coming generations of economists,” – Dr. Manmohan Singh, former Prime Minister | |
“Even as a student, he had a sharp empirical sense. As a teacher too his courses were data intensive,” – K.L. Krishna, Chairman of Center for Economic and Social Studies. | |
“I used to call him the ‘Frontier Function’ (a term in economic literature that often charts the maximum attainable value) since he was a role model in all aspects of life,” – T.A. Bhavani, Professor of Economics at the Institute of Economic Growth | |
“He was in a league of his own. Even at this late stage of his career, he used to personally work on the data, unlike many who simply pontificate on issues without doing any real research,” – Himanshu, Assistant Professor , Centre for the Study of Regional Development School of Social Sciences, JNU. | |
“He told us that while we use data to interpret the world around us, the data itself needs interpretation,” – Abhijit Sen, a member of India’s Planning Commission, while summarizing Tendulkar’s contribution. | |
“He was one of the best economists in India who firmly believed in the liberalisation policies and was against the controlled regime.” – C Rangarajan, PMEAC Chairman | |
“He was an outstanding teacher and very logical. He would teach even subjective topics in an organized manner, step by step.” -India’s chief statistician, TCA Anant, who was Tendulkar’s student at the Delhi School of Economics from 1978 to 1980 | |
“Prof. Suresh Tendulkar was, by all accounts, one of the pre-eminent economists of India who was deeply respected both in the academia and the public policy space. His scholarship straddled a wide range of sub-disciplines in economics but his seminal work on the measurement and analysis of living standards in India, with focus on inequality and poverty, will remain his enduring legacy to public policy formulation.” -Dr Duvvuri Subbarao, Governor of the Reserve Bank of India | |
“The Late Professor Suresh Tendulkar was an outstanding scholar who contributed extensively to the literature on poverty and development in India. His work continues to have deep significance both for theoretical and policy purposes. Apart from being an outstanding academic, he was actively involved not only in influencing but also shaping official Indian thinking on several important issues such as agricultural pricing, inequality, poverty measures, etc. I had the good fortune to know him personally for several years and miss his guidance and friendship due to his unfortunate and untimely death.” – Dr. Nachne, Professor Emeritus (IGIDR). | |
I had the privilege of being associated with Prof. Suresh Tendulkar in many phases of my professional life. He taught me development economics in the Delhi School of Economics. He reviewed my work during my time at the Indira Gandhi Institute of Development Research. He recommended me for the Fulbright fellowship. We regularly interacted when he was in the Economic Advisory Council to the Prime Minister. And, he was a member of the Central Board of the Reserve Bank of India for the first year and a half of my term there, at which point he passed away. Throughout this long engagement, I observed and was inspired by his rare combination of analytical rigour and meticulousness, sensitivity to the fundamental objectives of economic policy and extreme humility. I was honored to have been invited to deliver the first lecture in his memory instituted by SSE. That was a great way for me to pay my tribute to a great economist, with whom I had a fulfilling professional and personal relationship. – Dr. Subir Gokarn, Executive Director, IMF |
Suresh Dhondopant Tendulkar will remain one of India’s most outstanding academicians and public servants. In all his assignments in the diverse councils, commissions and committees, he put in tremendous amounts of time and effort, and, above all, brought to all of them an enormous personal integrity.
In honor of Dr.Suresh Tendulkar, an Indian economist and former chief of National Statistical Commission, SSE has instituted the Suresh Tendulkar Memorial Lecture Series. The series was the brainchild of Dr. Chandiramani, Director SSE and Dean Faculty of Humanities and Social Sciences, whose association with Professor Tendulkar went back to the 90s. When the Master’s programme was initiated at SSE in 2011, Dr. Chandiramani sought to invite Prof. Tendulkar as an academic mentor to the students and faculty at SSE, until news broke of his untimely death. It was then proposed by Dr. Chandiramani, that an annual lecture series be held at SSE as a tribute to the memory of the late professor. These plans came to fruition in 2014 when the inaugural Prof. Tendulkar Lecture Series was held at SSE.
Dr. Tendulkar’s work on measurement and analysis of living standards in India, with a focus on inequality and poverty remains his lasting legacy to public policy. The Tendulkar Committee’s recommendations marked a clear break from the past in explicitly moving away from the calorie-based norms that anchored the original official poverty line at 1973-74 prices. It also recommended that the rural poverty line should be recomputed to reflect money value in rural areas of the same basket of consumption that is associated with existing urban poverty ratio.
He began his career at the Planning Unit of the Indian Statistical Institute (ISI) in 1968 and has since then worn several hats. He has worked at the Development Research Centre of the World Bank in Washington DC. In 1978, he joined Delhi School of Economics as a professor. Till his retirement in 2004, his involvement with DSE has been versatile, to say the least. Tendulkar taught many subjects, including Indian Economy, Industrial Economics and Planning as a faculty member of the Delhi School of Economics.
His publishing record is enviable and explores various issues ranging from credit and privatization policies and Indian development issues and policies, including liberalization and globalization.
He authored two major books – Reintegrating India with the World Economy, with T N Srinivasan, and Understanding Reforms Post-1991 India, with T A Bhavani. Suresh also wrote close to 100 research papers and reports. These covered a wide range of subjects from “Press as a Public Utility” to “An Approach towards Integrating Large and Small Scale Surveys” in the Pranab Bardhan edited 1989 volume Conversations between Economists and Anthropologists: Methodological Issues in Measuring Economic Change in Rural India.
He has been influential in other aspects of policy making as well. He was involved with the Fifth Central Pay Commission, Disinvestment Commission, and High-level Expert Committee for Formulating Long-Term Grain Policy. This phase of his involvement in public policymaking culminated in his becoming ?rst a member, and subsequently, the chairman of the Prime Minister’s Economic Advisory Council, from August 2008 to August 2009.
Prof. Tendulkar’s pioneering contribution was his extensive work on poverty and estimation of people below poverty line (BPL). A committee was formed by a government of India in 2009, with Tendulkar as Chairman to ‘Report on Methodology of Estimation of Poverty’. In 2009, this committee came out with a new method to calculate poverty. The Tendulkar Committee’s recommendations marked a clear break from the past in explicitly moving away from the calorie-based norms that anchored the original official poverty line at 1973-74 prices. The committee recommended that the rural poverty line should be recomputed to reflect money value in rural areas of the same basket of consumption that is associated with existing urban poverty ratio.
Timeline
- Born on February, 15, 1939 in Kolhapur district of Maharashtra.
- Completed school from Perugate Bhave School, Pune and bachelor’s degree in commerce from BMCC, Pune in 1960.
- Completed Masters in Economics and Statistics from Delhi School of Economics in 1962.
- Completed Ph.D. from Harvard University on his thesis on “Some Experiments in Multi-Sectoral Planning Model for India” with Prof. H.S.Houthakkar and H.B. Chennery as his supervisors.
- Taught at the Delhi Centre of the Indian Statistical Institute (1968-78)
- Professor at Department of Economics, Delhi School of Economics (1978-2004
- Managing Editor of the Journal of India Economic Review (1981-1986)
- Head, Department of Economics, Delhi School of Economics (1986-1989)
- Director, Delhi School of Economics (1995-1998)
- Executive Director, Centre for Development Economics (CDE), Delhi School Of Economics (2000-04)
- Member of the 1993 ‘ Expert Group on Estimation of Proportion and Number of Poor’
- Member of the Fifth Central Pay Commission (1994-97)
- Member of the first “Disinvestment Commission” (1996-99)
- Part-time member of the National Statistical Commission (2000-01)
- Reserve Bank of India’s Central Board of Directors
- Member of the Prime Minister’s Economic Advisory Council (2004- 2008)
- Chairman of the Prime Minister’s Economic Advisory Council (2008- 2009)
- Chairman of the expert group to review the methodology for the estimation of poverty (2009)
His Work & Books:
1. Suresh D. Tendulkar and T.A. Bhavani (2012), “Understanding Reforms: Post-1991 India”
2. T. N. Srinivasan and Suresh D. Tendulkar, “Reintegrating India with the World Economy”
Selected Publications:
- Tendulkar, S.D. (1969), Econometric Study of Monthly Consumption Expenditures in Rural Uttar Pradesh, American Journal of Agricultural Economics, Vol. 51, 119-137.
- Tendulkar, S.D. (1971), Interaction Between Domestic and Foreign Resources in Economic Growth: Some Experiments for India, in H.B. Chenery (Ed.), Studies in Development Planning, Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 122-154.
- Tendulkar, S.D. (1974), Planning for Growth, Redistribution and Self-Reliance in the Fifth Five-Year Plan-I, Economic and Political Weekly, Vol. 9.
- Tendulkar, S.D. (1974b), Planning for Growth, Redistribution and Self-Reliance in the Fifth Five-Year Plan-II, Economic and Political Weekly, Vol. 9.
- Tendulkar, S.D. (1974c), Draft Fifth Plan and Removal of Poverty, Economic and Political Weekly, Vol. 9, 283-289.
- Tendulkar, S.D. (1977), Planning Process, Planning Commission and Rollover Planning: Some Basic Issues, Economic and Political Weekly, Vol. 12, 1777-1782.
- Tendulkar, S.D. (1978), Employment (A Critical Review of the Draft Five Year Plan 1978-83 with Reference to the Employment Objective), Seminar, No. 228.
- K Sundaram and Suresh D Tendulkar (Nov 1983),Poverty in the Mid-Term Appraisal, Economic and Political Weekly, Vol-XVIII.
- K Krishnamurty, K Sundaram, and Suresh D Tendulkar (May 1985),The Union Budget, 1985-86-An Appraisal, Economic, and Political Weekly, Vol-XX.
- K Sundaram and Suresh D Tendulkar (Jun 1986), Financing the Step-up in Plan Investment-Administered Price Hikes or Increased Deficit Financing, Economic and Political Weekly, Vol-XXI.
- L R Jain and Suresh D Tendulkar (Sep 1990), RuralPoverty and Its Critical Scrutiny, Economic and Political Weekly, Vol-XXV.
- L R Jain and Suresh D Tendulkar (Mar 1991),PERSPECTIVES, Economic, and Political Weekly, Vol-XXVI.
- Tendulkar, Suresh D., K. Sundaram and L.R. Jain (1993): Poverty in India, 1970-71 to 1988-89, ARTEP Working Papers, International Labour Organisation, Asian Regional Team for Employment Promotion, New Delhi.
- L R Jain and Suresh D Tendulkar (Jun 1995), Economic Reforms and Poverty, Economic and Political Weekly, Vol –XXX.
- K Sundaram and Suresh D Tendulkar (Jan 2003),Poverty Has Declined in the 1990s, Economic and Political Weekly, Vol – XXXVIII No. 04.
- K Sundaram and Suresh D Tendulkar (Jan 2003),NAS-NSS Estimates of Private Consumption for Poverty Estimation, Economic and Political Weekly, Vol – XXXVIII No. 04.
- Suresh D Tendulkar(Aug 2003),Political Economy of Indian Economic Policy, Economic and Political Weekly,Vol – XXXVIII No. 31.
- Sundaram, K. and S. Tendulkar (2003), Poverty in India in the 1990s, Economic and Political Weekly, Vol. XXXVIII No 46.
- K Sundaram and Suresh D Tendulkar(Dec 2003) Poverty among Social and Economic Groups in India in 1990s, Economic and Political Weekly, Vol – XXXVIII No. 50, December 13, 2003
- K Sundaram and Suresh D Tendulkar(Nov 2004),The Poor in the Indian Labour Force, Economic and Political Weekly, Vol – XXXIX No. 48
- Tendulkar, S.D (Sept, 2007), India’s Growing Service Sector: Database Problems and Issues, Economic and Political Weekly, Vol. XLII No 37.
- Tendulkar, S.D. and T.A. Bhavani. (2007), Understanding Reforms: Post-1991 India, New Delhi: Oxford University Press [reprinted paperback edition in 2012].
- Tendulkar, S.D (Nov 2009), Report on the Expert Group To Review The Methodology For Estimating Poverty
- Tendulkar, S.D. (Jan 2010), Labour markets in newly integrating economies such as India and China: are they different? – BIS Paper Number 50.
Others’ Works Paying Tribute to Prof. Tendulkar’s Legacy
- K Sundaram (Aug 2011), Suresh Tendulkar: An Economist’s Life, Economic and Political Weekly, Vol–XLVI.
- S Mahendra Dev (Aug 2011),A Mentor beyond D-School, Economic and Political Weekly, Vol- XLVI
- Srinivas T.N. (Aug 2013): Planning, Poverty and Political Economy of Reforms: A Tribute to Suresh Tendulkar – Working Paper No. 477 – Stanford Centre for Economic Development.