Dr. RS Sharma

Dr. Ram Sewak Sharma, an Indian bureaucrat and former civil servant, served as the Chief Executive Officer of the National Health Authority, an Indian governmental organisation tasked with managing public health insurance till February 2023. Previously, he headed the Telecom Regulatory Authority of India, and the Unique Identification Authority of India. As the first Director General of the Unique Identification Authority of India, he helped create the 12-digit identity number, called Aadhaar, which is available to all eligible residents in India. He has authored a book titled The Making of Aadhaar: World’s Largest Identity Platform. He is the chairperson of an empowered committee for administration of Covid-19 vaccine delivery technology platform (Co-WIN). CoWIN along with the national Covid-19 vaccination campaign was launched by the Prime Minister on January 16, 2021. Dr. Sharma was called back from retirement to take the responsibility of developing and executing the CoWIN or the Covid-19 Vaccine Intelligence Network. India crossed a mark of administering 2 billion vaccinations in July, 2022. The country also signed an MoU with the government of the Co-operative Republic of Guyana for sharing CoWIN. Born in a small village of Uttar Pradesh, he completed his early education from schools near his village. He joined University of Allahabad from where he earned his Bachelor of Science (BSc). He completed his master’s in Mathematics from IIT, Kanpur, in 1978. While on leave from the Government of India, he earned a master’s in computer science from University of California, Riverside in 2002 and subsequently a PhD from IIT, Delhi.