Abhijit Sen

Abhijit Sen (18 November 1950 – 29 August 2022) was an Indian economist who focused on studying rural development. Sen was appointed to the Planning Commission of India between 2004 and 2014 and held a number of policy making positions in India. Amongst his works included recommendations toward establishment of minimum support price for farm produce and a universal public distribution system. Sen was a recipient of the Padma Bhushan, India's third highest civilian honor, in 2010.

Early life Sen was born on 18 November 1950 He later went to the University of Cambridge and obtained a PhD in economics in 1981 as a member of Trinity Hall, with a thesis titled "The agrarian constraint to economic development: the case of India" written under the supervision of Suzy Paine. Sen's work computed MSP based on not only direct costs of producing the grains, but also included indirect costs like unpaid family labor, opportunity costs from rent and interest lost on owned land, as well as capital asset costs. This recommendation was captured in the eventual 'Swaminathan Formula' that was adopted to compute the MSP costs which pegged MSP at 50% higher than direct production costs. He was also a member of the State Planning Boards of West Bengal and Tripura, PM's Taskforce on Agricultural Economics and Rural Development, and the Expert Committee on Rural Credit. As an advocate of the universal PDS system, Sen maintained that the cost of food subsidies was overstated and that a country like India could afford both a universal PDS system providing food grains at an affordable rate to its population, while also providing a minimum support price to its farmers.

Sen received the Padma Bhushan, India's third highest civilian award, for public service in 2010.

Sen had a heart attack and died in New Delhi on 29 August 2022, at the age of 71.

Select published works