Professor Katar Singh is currently Honorary (Founder) Chairman, India Natural Resource Economics and Management (INREM) Foundation, Anand which is a nongovernmental academic organization committed to promoting teaching, training and research in natural resource economics and environment management, and improving natural resource management policies and programmes. He holds a Ph.D. in agricultural economics from the University of Illinois, Urbana-Champaign, USA, and has done postdoctoral research and advanced course work in natural resource economics from the Department of Agricultural and Resource Economics, Oregon State University, Corvallis, USA and from the Workshop in Political Theory and Policy Analysis, Indiana University Bloomington, USA.
He has over 45 years of teaching, training, research and consulting experience in the areas of agricultural and rural development, and natural resource economics and management. He was Director and RBI Chair Professor in the Institute of Rural Management, Anand (IRMA), India, and has also had a short stint as Director, Bankers Institute of Rural Development, Lucknow. He has also taught at the GB Pant University of Agriculture and Technology, Pantnagar, India.
He has coordinated and conducted several research and consultancy projects funded by national and international agencies. A prolifi c writer, he has published over 120 articles and papers in professional journals of repute and authored/coauthored nine books, including a textbook Rural Development: Principles, Policies and Management, Second Ed. (SAGE, 1999), and another entitled Environmental Economics: Theory and Applications (SAGE, 2007), coauthored with Dr Anil Shishodia. He has also coedited three books, namely, Co-operative Management of Natural Resources (SAGE, 1996), Natural Resource Economics: Theory and Application in India (Oxford & IBH, 1997), and Designing and Managing Rural Development Organisations (Oxford & IBH, 2000).
Professor Singh is a life member of numerous bodies including the Indian Society of Agricultural Economics (ISAE) and the Indian Association of Public Administration (IAPA). He has been recipient of several awards and honours, including Rathindra Puraskar 2003, awarded by Visva Bharati University, Santi Niketan, in recognition of his significant contribution to education in rural development and Sir Chhotu Ram National Award for the year 1996–97, awarded by CSS Haryana Agriculture University, Hisar, in recognition of his outstanding research work in the field of agriculture and rural development.
