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{{Short description|Indian economist}}
{{Infobox scientist
| name = Sukhamoy Chakravarty
| image = Sukhamoy-Chakravarty-Indian-Economist.png
| image_size = 220
| caption =
| birth_date = {{birth date|df=y|1934|7|26}}
| birth_place = [[Mymensingh]], [[British India]] (now [[Bangladesh]])
| death_date = {{death date and age|df=y|1990|8|22|1934|7|26}}
| death_place = [[New Delhi]], [[India]]<ref>{{cite news |title=Sukhamoy Chakravorty dead |newspaper=The Indian Express |date=23 August 1990 |page=3}}</ref><ref>{{cite news |title=A Forgotten Brilliance - An explorer in the world of ideas |newspaper=The Telegraph India |date=1 July 2013 |url=https://www.telegraphindia.com/opinion/a-forgotten-brilliance-an-explorer-in-the-world-of-ideas/cid/283431}}</ref><ref>{{cite news |title=Obituary - Sukhamoy Chakravarty (1934-1990) |newspaper=The Journal of Asian Studies (Cambridge University Press) |author=George Rosen (University of Chicago) |volume=50 |issue=2 | page=482 |date=1 May 1991 |url=https://www.cambridge.org/core/journals/journal-of-asian-studies/article/sukhamoy-chakravarty-19341990/4F4FCE0721CC680A43C353A7A0A5786E}}</ref>
| residence =
| citizenship =
| ethnicity =
| field = [[Economics]]
| work_institutions = [[Delhi School of Economics]] [[Massachusetts Institute of Technology]] [[Johns Hopkins University]]
 [[Erasmus University Rotterdam]] [[Netherlands Economic Institute]]
| alma_mater = [[Ballygunge Government High School]] [[Presidency College, Kolkata]] [[University of Calcutta]]
| doctoral_advisor = [[Jan Tinbergen]]
| doctoral_students =
| known_for = Chakravarty Committee
| author_abbrev_bot =
| author_abbrev_zoo =
| influences =
| influenced =
| prizes =
| religion =
| footnotes =
| signature =
}}
'''Sukhamoy Chakravarty''' ({{small|Bengali}}:[[Help:IPA/Bengali|sʊkʰəmoɪ tʃʌkrəvɑːrti]]; 26 July 1934 – 22 August 1990) was an Indian economist who, along with [[Prasanta Chandra Mahalanobis]], was a key architect of the [[Five-Year plans of India]]. He attended [[Ballygunge Government High School]],<ref>{{Cite journal |author=Gupta, Partha Sarathi |title=Of shared days with Amartya |journal=India International Centre Quarterly |volume=25/26 |issue=4/1 |date=Winter 1998 – Spring 1999 |pages=70–75 |jstor=23005530}}</ref> [[Calcutta]] and [[Presidency College, Kolkata]] when it was under [[University of Calcutta]] as an Economics major, where he was a batchmate of [[Amartya Sen]].<ref>{{cite web|title=Brief History of Presidency|url=http://www.presiuniv.ac.in/web/presidency_history.php|publisher=[[Presidency College, Kolkata]]}}</ref> He later attended the [[Delhi School of Economics]]
and obtained a doctorate from [[Erasmus University Rotterdam]] under [[Jan Tinbergen]]. He assumed a teaching post at [[Massachusetts Institute of Technology]] but returned to India to join the [[Planning Commission (India)|Planning Commission]].<ref>{{cite book|last=Harcourt|first=G. C.|title=On Skidelsky's Keynes and Other Essays: Selected Essays of G. C. Harcourt|year=2012|publisher=Palgrave Macmillan|isbn=978-0-230-34864-6|pages=305–307|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=kBKn88mfKOoC&pg=304}}</ref> He was a professor of economics at the [[Delhi School of Economics]]. Most of all, he was known for the Chakravarty commission of 1982–85 that helped in economic reforms to the monetary system in India.

== Early life and education ==
Born in Mymensingh village in Dhaka in 1934 in a well to do family, Sukhamoy completed his schooling where his father was a judge. Subsequently he joined Presidency College in Calcutta for under-graduate studies and Calcutta University for M.A. in Economics. Right from his college days Chakravarty showed a wide range of interests in literature, philosophy, history and mathematics.<ref name=":0">{{Cite journal |last=Aggarwal |first=M.L. |last2=Mukherji |first2=Badal |last3=Pandit |first3=V. |date=1992 |title=Sukhamoy Chakravarty: Theorist and Policymaker |journal=Indian Economics Review |publisher=[[Delhi School of Economics]] |volume=27 |issue=1 |pages=371-376 |issn=00194670 |eissn=25201778 |via=JSTOR}}</ref>

A short stint at the [[Indian Statistical Institute]] which brought him into contact with Professor [[Prasanta Chandra Mahalanobis|P.C. Mahalanobis]] helped Sukhamoy in starting his professional career. Tinbergen who was on a visit to the Institute was so impressed with Chakravarty that he right away offered him a fellowship for doctoral studies at the Netherlands Institute of Economics. On the completion of his doctoral work in less than one year, he spent two years at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology for doing teaching and research.<ref name=":0" />

== Career ==
In 23 April 1961 [[Paul Rosenstein-Rodan|P.N. Rosenstein-Rodan]] had sent a reply in letter to [[Jawaharlal Nehru|PM Nehru]] when the latter had demanded to know the best Indian economists from abroad that can be employed in [[Planning Commission (India)|Planning Commission]]. The first recommendation made was Sukhamoy who was an assistant professor at MIT at the time. This was followed by A. K. Sen, [[Jagdish Bhagwati]] and [[K. N. Raj]].<ref>{{Cite web |date=1961-04-19 |title=From P.N. Rosenstein-Rodan: Economists for Planning (19 April 1961) |url=https://nehruarchive.in/documents/from-p-n-rosenstein-rodan-economists-for-planning-19-april-1961-z6nno |access-date=2026-04-26 |website=The Nehru Archive |language=en-IN}}</ref>

On his return to India later in 1961 Chakravarty taught at his alma mater, the [[Presidency University, Kolkata|Presidency College]] in [[Kolkata|Calcutta]] until 1963 when he took up the Sir [[Shankarlal Banker|Shankarlal]] Professorship in Mathematical Economics at the [[Delhi School of Economics]]. This was the beginning of Chakravarty's longest professional association where the performance on his part was exemplary and the same can be said for the School of Economics. Prior to Chakravarti's arrival, B.N. Ganguli and K. N. Raj were the eminent professors of this school. Jagdish Bhagwati, A.L. Nagar and [[Amartya Sen]] too joined its faculty about the same time as Chakravarty. This was a period of high academic activity at the school with seminars jointly held with the Planning Unit of the [[Indian Statistical Institute]] (ISI) which had added B.S. Minhas and [[T. N. Srinivasan|T.N. Srinivasan]] to its faculty. Many well regarded economists from British and American universities visiting Delhi under various programmes also actively participated in the same seminars.<ref name=":0" />

The subsequent years were of intense professional activity for Chakravarty. Visiting Professorships at the [[Massachusetts Institute of Technology]] and [[Johns Hopkins University]] were followed by his appointment as a member of the Planning Commission in 1971 at an unusually young age. In 1976 he was chosen as the first Tinbergen visiting professor at [[Erasmus University Rotterdam|Erasmus University]], Rotterdam. In 1984 he was the Jawaharlal Nehru Visiting Professor at Cambridge, England.<ref name=":0" />

== Chakravarty Committee ==
In Dec 1982 to review the working of the monetary system, the '''Chakravarty committee''' was appointed by the then Governor, [[Reserve Bank of India]], [[Manmohan Singh|Dr. Manmohan Singh]] and was asked to review the functioning of the monetary system in India. Members were chosen in their individual capacity as eminent men with each member distinguished in his own field of specialization.<ref name=":1">{{Cite journal |last=Datta |first=Bhabatosh |date=1986 |title=Monetary Reform |url=https://www.jstor.org/stable/4375200 |journal=Economic and Political Weekly |volume=21 |issue=2 |pages=74–77 |issn=0012-9976}}</ref><ref name=":2">{{Cite web |title=Report of the Committee to Review the Working of the Monetary System (1985), chaired by Sukhamoy Chakravarty {{!}} The 1991 Project |url=https://drupal.the1991project.com/public-repository/committee-reports/report-committee-review-working-monetary-system-1985-chaired |access-date=2026-04-26 |website=drupal.the1991project.com}}</ref>

The committee was led by these five members and chaired by Sukhamoy:

# Prof. Sukhamoy Chakravarty
# M. P. Chitale
# R. K. Hazari
# F. A. Mehta
# [[C. Rangarajan]]

[[File:Scommfyp1.png|thumb|''Chakravarty committee report'']]
These were the following below points of reference under which the committee was assigned to work:

* To critically review the structure and operation of the monetary system in the context of the basic objectives of planned development.
* To assess the inter-action between monetary policy and public debt management in so far as they have a bearing on the effectiveness of monetary policy.
* To evaluate the various instruments of monetary and credit policy in terms of their impact on the credit system and on the economy. In this context links among the banking sector, the non-banking financial institutions and the unorganised sector could he assessed.
* To recommend measures for improvement in the formulation and operation of monetary and credit policies and to suggest specific areas where the various policy instruments need strengthening.
* To make such other recommendations as the Committee may deem relevant to the effective operation of monetary and credit policy.<ref name=":1" /><ref name=":2" />

The work got such voluminous that its tentative submission date of 30 April 1984 was extended by one year. More than 200 recommendations / observations were made by the committee at the end of its working in 1985 when the report was submitted. Some of them are listed below:

* The growth in output achieved over the plan periods was accompanied by notable structural shifts in the composition of output. The average share of the public sector in GDP increased from 8.5 percent during the First Five Year Plan period (1951-56) to 23.2 percent in the first four years of the Sixth Plan (1980-81 - 1983-84)
* The importance of strengthening credit delivery systems of the cooperative banks and commercial banks has been recognised in the successive plans particularly since the major segment of the commercial banking system was brought under the public sector in 1969.
* The relative share of state governments in marketable debt out standing which was 15.1 percent in March 1971 declined to 9.1 percent in March 1984.<ref name=":1" /><ref name=":2" />

[[File:Scommfyp2.png|thumb|GDP Table]]
The recommendations made helped a lot in upcoming economic reforms in the developing [[economy of India]] in the following Five Year Plans.<ref name=":1" />

== Memberships Held ==
Having been elected a fellow of the Econometric Society in 1969, he served as a member of its council for several years.<ref name=":0" />

c. 1984, he had been appointed Chairman of the [[Economic Advisory Council to the Prime Minister|Economic Advisory Council of the Prime Minster]] and served three successive Prime Ministers.<ref name=":3" />

In 1983-1984, Sukhamoy Chakravarty was one of the seventeen members of the Independent Commission for World-Wide Telecommunications Development chaired by Donald Maitland (International Telecommunication Union/ITU).<ref>{{Cite web |title=The Missing Link / Maitland Report |url=https://www.itu.int:443/en/history/Pages/MaitlandReport.aspx |access-date=2023-07-08 |website=ITU |language=en-US}}</ref>

He also served as Vice-President of the [[International Economic Association]] and played a pivotal role in organizing the World Congress of the Association in Delhi in December 1986 in his additional capacity as President of the Indian Economic Association.<ref name=":0" />

He had also been the Vice President and Founder of Research and Information Systems of Developing Countries (RIS), New Delhi in 1983 for which he held the position till his death. For his efforts in nurturing the administrative officers of RIS in its initial phase, he was honored by having RIS library named after him.<ref name=":3" />

== Honours and Awards ==
Chakravarty was the first recipient of the coveted [[Prasanta Chandra Mahalanobis|Mahalanobis]] Memorial Medal<ref>{{Cite web |title=:: The Indian Econometric Society :: |url=http://www.tiesindia.net/awards.html |access-date=2026-04-26 |website=www.tiesindia.net}}</ref> and the [[V. K. R. V. Rao|V.K.R.V. Rao]] Prize.<ref>{{Cite web |title=Welcome To ISEC |url=https://www.isec.ac.in/vkrv-rao-prizes/ |access-date=2026-04-26 |language=en}}</ref>

== Legacy ==
Sukhamoy was an avid reader and scholar. Credited to be the one of the foremost Indian economists of the 20th Century by his well known colleagues, his initial interest in [[Keynesian economics|high theory]] and [[mathematical economics]] gave way to practical policy analysis of issues relating to the under-privileged. He had put forward his scholarship to further the study of applications in development issues. [[Paul Samuelson]] and [[Jan Tinbergen|Tinbergen]] had a deep and profound respect for Chakravarty.

Samuelson, the Dutch economist, had shown his respect by writing in the foreword to Chakravarty's book: <nowiki>''</nowiki>What makes for a beautiful problem in science? It may be logical beauty: proof that the set of prime numbers cannot be finite... is as aesthetically neat in our times as it was in Euclid’s. But a problem takes on extra lustre if, in addition to its logical elegance, it provides useful knowledge. By the above test, we must judge Professor Chakravarty’s book to be fascinating<nowiki>''</nowiki><ref>{{Cite web |last=Rajadhyaksha |first=Niranjan |date=2019-10-29 |title=Opinion {{!}} The relevance of an old debate to the economic scenario today |url=https://www.livemint.com/opinion/columns/opinion-the-relevance-of-an-old-debate-to-the-economic-scenario-today-11572369334268.html |access-date=2026-04-26 |website=mint |language=en}}</ref>

Upon his death, Tinbergen in a tribute remarked that he had learned more from Chakravarty than the latter learnt from him.{{Citation needed|date=April 2026}}

A conference was held on 17 March 2017 in [[Partha Sarathi Gupta|G. Parthasarathi]] Conference Hall in his memory that had been attended by dignitaries such as [[Yoginder K Alagh|Dr. Manmohan Singh]], [[Yoginder K Alagh|Prof. Y.K. Alagh]], Manmohan Agarwal, Dr. V. S. Seshadri, and [[V. R. Panchamukhi|V.R. Panchamukhi]].<ref name=":3">{{Cite web |title=Dedication of RIS Library to the Memory of Prof. Sukhamoy Chakravarty {{!}} RIS {{!}} Research and Information System for Developing Countries |url=https://www.ris.org.in/en/recent/events/dedication-ris-library-memory-prof-sukhamoy-chakravarty# |access-date=2026-04-26 |website=www.ris.org.in}}</ref>

== Bibliography ==

=== Books ===

* Chakravarty, S. (1987). ''Development Planning: the Indian Experience.'' MIT Press.<ref>{{Cite book |last=Chakravarty |first=Sukhamoy |url=https://books.google.co.in/books/about/Development_Planning.html?id=Hu2wAAAAIAAJ&redir_esc=y |title=Development Planning: The Indian Experience |date=1987 |publisher=Clarendon Press |isbn=978-0-19-828555-7 |language=en}}</ref>
* Chakravarty, S. (1969). ''Capital and Development Planning''. MIT Press.<ref>{{Cite book |last=Chakravarty |first=Sukhamoy |url=https://books.google.co.in/books/about/Capital_and_Development_Planning.html?id=ZJq4AAAAIAAJ&redir_esc=y |title=Capital and Development Planning |date=1969 |publisher=M.I.T. Press |isbn=978-0-262-03027-4 |language=en}}</ref>

=== Journals ===

* Chakravarty, S. (1979). On the Question of Home Market and Prospects for Indian Growth. ''Economic and Political Weekly'', ''14''(30/32), 1229–1242.<ref>{{Cite journal |last=Chakravarty |first=Sukhamoy |date=1979 |title=On the Question of Home Market and Prospects for Indian Growth |url=https://www.jstor.org/stable/4367815 |journal=Economic and Political Weekly |volume=14 |issue=30/32 |pages=1229–1242 |issn=0012-9976}}</ref>
* Chakravarty, S. (1965). An Optimizing Planning Model. ''Economic and Political Weekly, 17''(5−7), 237 – 252.<ref>{{Cite web |title=Vol. 17, Issue No. 5-6-7, 31 Jan, 1965 {{!}} Economic and Political Weekly |url=https://www.epw.in/journal/1965/5-6-7 |access-date=2026-04-26 |website=www.epw.in}}</ref>
* Chakravarty, S. (1962). The Existence of an Optimum Savings Programme. ''Econometrica, 30''(1), 178 – 187.<ref>{{Cite journal |last=Chakravarty |first=S. |date=1962 |title=The Existence of an Optimum Savings Program |url=https://www.jstor.org/stable/1911293 |journal=Econometrica |volume=30 |issue=1 |pages=178–187 |doi=10.2307/1911293 |issn=0012-9682}}</ref>
* Chakravarty, S. (1962). Optimal Savings with Finite Planning Horizon. ''International Economic Review, 3''(3), 338 – 355.<ref>{{Cite journal |last=Chakravarty |first=S. |date=1962 |title=Optimal Savings with Finite Planning Horizon |url=https://www.jstor.org/stable/2525399 |journal=International Economic Review |volume=3 |issue=3 |pages=338–355 |doi=10.2307/2525399 |issn=0020-6598}}</ref>

== See also ==

* {{Annotated link|Mahalanobis model}}
* {{Annotated link|Keynesian economics}}
* {{Annotated link|Pontryagin's maximum principle}}<ref name=":0" />
* {{Annotated link|Socialist economics}}

==References==
{{Reflist}}

{{Authority control}}

{{DEFAULTSORT:Chakravarty, Sukhamoy}}
[[Category:1934 births]]
[[Category:1990 deaths]]
[[Category:20th-century Indian economists]]
[[Category:Fellows of the Econometric Society]]
[[Category:20th-century Indian statisticians]]

Sukhamoy Chakraborty - Revision history

PriscillaNair10: starting the article nd citations