Ram Saran Mahat

Ram Saran Mahat
राम शरण महत
Ram Sharan Mahat speaking in a program on women's participation
Ministry of Finance
In office 25 February 2014 – 12 October 2015
President	Ram Baran Yadav
Prime Minister	Sushil Koirala
Vice President	Paramananda Jha
Minister of Foreign Affairs
In office 1999–2000
Personal details
Born	(1951-01-01) 1 January 1951 Kabilas–8, Nuwakot
Nationality	Nepali
Political party	Nepali Congress
Parents	Khadga Bahadur Mahat Tol Kumari Mahat
Alma mater	Tribhuvan University, Kathmandu, Nepal Gokhale Institute of Economics and Politics, Pune, India
Awards	Best Finance Minister[1] Francis Humbert Humphrey Award for Leadership Role in the Public Service

Dr. Ram Sharan Mahat was the Finance Minister of Nepal under the government led by Sushil Koirala.^[2][3]

He represented Nepali Congress in the Nepalese Constituent Assembly election, 2008 and was elected from Nuwakot-2 with 17,444 votes, defeating his closest opponent Hit Bahadur Tamang of Unified Communist Party of Nepal (Maoist).^[4]

He is widely acknowledged as one of the key architects of the economic reforms in the Post-1990 period which brought significant improvements in Nepal's economy with higher growth, progress in human development indicators and decline in poverty level. His tenure also saw many reforms in the public expenditure management, finance and banking, and revenue reforms including the introduction of the Value Added Tax. He was the principal author of Nepal's Eighth Plan which brought about sweeping policy changes in the economy, with greater role to the private sector in economic activities.

During his time as Finance Minister, Nepal was elected chairman of the IMF/World Bank Board of Governors for 1998/99. He also served as Minister of Foreign Affairs for about a year in 1999-2000.

Dr.Ram Sharan Mahat is credited for facilitating the reconstruction and rehabilitation works in the aftermath of the disastrous earthquake in Nepal in 2015—particularly holding a successful donors’ conference for reconstruction, curbing inflation, and effective utilization of foreign aid and for pushing for reforms to improve governance in the country’s Ministry of finance. For this work, he was declared as the world's best Finance Minister by The Banker .^[1]

He is a member of the 2nd Nepalese Constituent Assembly. He won the Nuwakot–2 seat in Nepalese Constituent Assembly election, 2013 from the Nepali Congress.^[5][6]

Personal life

Ram Sharan Mahat was born to a middle-class family in Nuwakot, Nepal on 1 January 1951. He is the eldest of 7 children of Khadga Bahadur Mahat and Tol Kumari Mahat.

He passed the School Leaving Certificate at the age of 13 in 1964. He was gold medalist in his college and university life. Ram Sharan Mahat got his Masters degree in Economics from Tribhuvan University in 1972, and received his Ph. D. from Gokhale Institute of Economics and Politics in Pune, India in 1979. Dr. Mahat was also a recipient of US Government's Hubert Humphrey Fellowship 1987/88 and was associated with the School of International Studies of the American University, Washington DC, USA.

Following graduation from college at the age of 17, Ram Sharan Mahat worked as a high school headmaster in Lamjung district of Nepal. He briefly worked as a lecturer in Economics, at the Department of Tribhuvan University.

Dr Mahat joined the UN service in 1980, and served at UNDP office in Kathmandu, New York and Pakistan. In his last assignment, he coordinated UNDP cross border humanitarian programme in Afghanistan (1989-1990). After the restoration of democratic politics in Nepal 1990, he left the UNDP job to join electoral politics in his country.He served as the Deputy Chairman of the National Planning Commission of Nepal for three years (1991-1993). He was elected Member of Parliament first time in 1993 from constituent-2 of Nuwakot district, which he has successfully retained to date. He won that seat for the fourth time in the November 2013 general election for the Constituent Assembly/Parliament.

In Nepal’s turbulent political transition following the decade long Maoist insurgency in Nepal, Dr. Mahat also served as member of the Special Committee for the Integration and Rehabilitation of Maoist Army Combatants, which saw the successful resolution in 2013 on the future of some 17,000 former combatants.

He has also served in the Board of Trustees of the Asian Institute of Technology, Bangkok (1993/4). He was a recipient of the Francis Humbert Humphrey Award for leadership role in the Public Service by the USIA and the Institute of International Education, USA. He is an honorary fellow of the University of Connecticut/Bridgeport.

Publications

He has several publications to his credit including a widely acclaimed book In Defence of Democracy: Dynamics and Fault lines of Nepal's Political Economy (2005).

References