Bio
Dr. Nirupam Mehrotra is Chief General Manager, NABARD and Director of the Bankers Institute of Rural Development (BIRD), Lucknow, an apex-level institution engaged in training, research, policy advocacy and consultancy in agriculture and rural development banking. Over a career spanning more than 25 years, he has worked across policy formulation and implementation in NABARD, with expertise in agricultural credit, rural infrastructure finance, climate finance, livelihoods, financial inclusion and impact evaluation.
At BIRD, Dr. Mehrotra has played a key role in mainstreaming climate change capacity building through the Institute’s Centre for Climate Change, including its Climate Change Learning Lab and focused training programmes on sustainability and resilience in rural finance, mainstreaming renewable financing through formal banking/ financial institution. These initiatives provide a platform for building understanding of climate-related risks and responses among rural finance stakeholders.. His work spans rural finance and climate-related capacity building, offering a perspective on how financial institutions can help enable resilient and sustainable rural livelihoods.
As Director, he has also spearheaded institutional transformation at BIRD, including the establishment of a Cyber Security Lab, digitisation of the Centre for Professional Excellence in Cooperatives (C-PEC), introduction of a Learning Management System, AI-enabled training interventions and digitisation of library resources. He has strengthened BIRD’s outreach through collaborations with national and international institutions, including the Tata-Cornell Institute, IIT Kanpur, Central Universities and Government Departments.
Earlier, Dr. Mehrotra served as State In-Charge of NABARD’s Madhya Pradesh Regional Office and represented NABARD on several Government of India and RBI committees, including the Expert Group on Agricultural Indebtedness, the Task Force on Issues Related to Farmers’ Credit, and the RBI Internal Working Group to Review Agricultural Credit. His professional and research interests include the design and delivery of rural credit, climate finance, financial inclusion and farmers’ income enhancement.
Dr. Mehrotra holds a doctorate in Agricultural Credit from the University of Mumbai and advanced degrees in Economics from Jawaharlal Nehru University, New Delhi, and the Gokhale Institute of Politics and Economics, Pune. He has contributed papers and articles to national and international journals and written for leading national dailies on agriculture, climate change and rural development.