Dr. Surajit Mitra appointed as IIFT Director

Dr. Surajit Mitra has been apponited as the Director for Indian Institute of Foreign Trade, New Delhi. An Ex-secretary, Government of India, Mitra has assumed the charge after K T Chacko demitted office in the first week of September.

Mitra belongs to the category of  IAS Officers of 1977 Batch from Assam-Meghalaya cadre with vast experience of working in the central ministries of commerce, industries, petroleum, tourism, rural development, communication, defence, home and finance. He has also served the state government of Assam in various capacities including as additional chief secretary. He was on the board of directors of Navratna CPSUs including ONGC, Indian Oil, GAIL and BHEL.

Being an alumnus of Jawaharlal Nehru University and Cambridge University, Dr Mitra was on the Board of Directors of Maruti Udyog Ltd. He was also a Fellow of Queen Elizabeth House, Oxford and honorary professor in the Centre for Policy Research (South-South Cooperation). He taught in the University of Delhi, North Eastern Hill University and JNU.

According to Mitra, he is extremely happy to get the opportunity to lead one of the prestigious business schools of India which has pioneered development of management studies and research in various aspects of International Trade since 1963. My objective will be to globally establish IIFT brand and enhance its pre-eminence as a centre for excellence in the management studies and foreign trade. I am very optimistic that with the rich and reputed faculty of IIFT, this goal is very much achievable. There is a  need to develop the human resource of our country to support the endeavour of the government to attend 500 billion dollar mark for export in the near future. Hence we will be on the look out to further expand our infrastructure spatially,he added.