Speaker

Dr Dipankar Saharia

Senior Director- Administrative Services and Regional Centres
Dr Dipankar Saharia heads TERI’s Administrative Services Division and its Regional Centres. He also guides the Social Transformation and CSR Division, Environment Education and Awareness Division, and a few other research Divisions in TERI. Earlier he was heading TERI’s North-Eastern Regional Centre. Dr. Saharia is a Director in the Board of ONGC TERI Biotech Ltd (OTBL).
He was with the Government of Assam as an officer of the Assam Civil Services. He held the positions of Assistant Commissioner and later Officer on Special Duty at the Personnel Department and Science & Technology Department, Government of Assam from 1997 to 2009 and was also on deputation to TERI. Dr Saharia also worked with TERI from 1995 to 1996 for the Tissue Culture Pilot Project (now MTP) before joining Assam Civil Service.
Under Dr Saharia’s guidance TERI carried many CSR projects and the one among others is the CSR and Environment Sustainability Project in Purulia for Coal India Limited. Solutions were designed under this project to meet the need of the community in Purulia in a planned and inclusive manner, and the major beneficiaries were farmers, women, underprivileged categories, BPL and marginalized segments.
Dr Saharia has a Masters in Science and Ph.D. from Gauhati University. His expertise lies in the areas of biotechnology, natural resource management and rural development where he has undertaken several projects and studies in the fields of watershed management, Micropropagation, Renewable Energy and Biofuels. He has been the PI of several mission mode projects for the north-eastern region, including the Department of Biotechnology (DBT) Mission for Quality Planting Material Production and Utilization for the North East, DBT’s Jatropha Micro Mission, DNA Club (DBT’s Natural Resource Awareness Programme Club) in Northeastern Region and Mini Mission I under Horticulture Mission, ICAR. He has published 24 research papers in national and international journals and is also a life member of East Himalayan Society for Spermatophyte Taxonomy.