Andhra Pradesh: Sunita Burra

Sunita Burra is the State Head for Andhra Pradesh, India. She has done Masters of Philosophy in Human Development. Since 1991 she has been associated with projects related to children. She worked with different NGOs in various states before becoming a member of Pratham in 2004. Since then she moved to Hyderabad to start the Andhra Pradesh chapter of Pratham.     



Assam: Abhijit Chakraborty

Abhijit joined Pratham, in 2006 and was a part of implementing the first program in the state. He now heads the state chapter in Assam and is responsible for the overall planning, implementation, monitoring and evaluation of all programs conducted in the state. Abhijit has over 9 years experience in community mobilization. He comes to Pratham after having worked as a HIV/AIDS education officer in several NGOs.



Bihar: Sanjay Singh

After completing his Masters degree from the Department of Labour and Social Welfare of Patna University in 1999, he joined Pratham. While with Pratham, he had the opportunity to study Education Technology at the University of Twente in Holland. Sanjay has been part of the core team that has taken Pratham from being a small urban program to a large scale statewide partnership with the government in elementary education. He has headed Pratham's work in Bihar since 2005. He has extensive field experience both in program implementation as well as content development, curriculum design and training.

Chattisgarh: Gaurav Sharma

Gaurav has been working with Pratham since 2005 and heads the program in Chattisgarh. He is a Masters in Commerce.





Delhi: Shailendra Sharma

A Masters in Social Work from Tata Institute of Social Sciences, Mumbai, Shailendra joined Pratham in 2002 and served in programme support unit during the initial years. Currently, he heads Pratham Delhi and is responsible for planning and execution of Pratham’s community based education programme for children in 3-14 years age group in about 300 underprivileged communities and 850 municipal schools of Delhi. He also coordinated Pratham’s Annual Status of Education Report (ASER) activities in the state of Jammu and Kashmir between 2005-07.

Gujarat: Renu Seth

Renu studied Sociology from the University of Mumbai. She joined Pratham in 2005, and first worked in the Urban and Read India programme. Currently, with her team, Renu looks after Pratham programmes in Gujarat. Her twelve year experience before Pratham was with various prorammes in the field of reproductive and sexual health.



Himachal Pradesh: Joginder Sharma

A Masters in Social Work and a Bachelor in Education, Joginder started as an elementary school teacher. His journey with Pratham began as a block coordinator in 2007 and he rose to become a District Coordinator. He has also engaged with various training programs of the neighboring states. He is passionate about education.



Jharkhand: Kumar Katyani

Kumar has been associated with Pratham since 2003. At present he is responsible for Pratham’s  programme  activities in Jharkhand.  He  started work in Pratham, Patna as a Coordinator of Capacity building and Pratham Education Center (PEC).  He has also conducted the ASER Campaign of Bihar and Jharkhand for 3 years.

He is a Post Graduate in Labour and Social Welfare from Magadh University and also a Post Graduate in Rural Management and Development from Patna University. At present he is  pursuing his Ph.D. in Rural Management and Development from Patna University.

Karnataka: Kanchan Banerjee

Kanchan is the Managing Trustee of Akshara Foundation the Karantaka arm of Pratham.  She is a sociologist and is trained in communications and teaching children with learning disabilities. She has been associated with the planning and execution of several of Akhsara Foundation’s programmes since 2000.




Madhya Pradesh: Sajjan Singh Shekhawat 

Sajjan has been working with Pratham since 2002 and heads the organization’s operations in Madhya Pradesh. A Masters in Social Work, Sajjan’s positive attitude enables him to handle his responsibilities in the highest pressure work situation.




Maharashtra: Sarika Raut

Sarika began her journey with Pratham in 2003 as a volunteer in the Sindhudurg District in Maharashtra. She holds a BA degree in Sociology and is also pursuing a Diploma course in Electronics and Telecommunication. She has worked with organisations like Nehru Yuva Kendra Sangathan and Ministry of Youth and Sports Affairs in the past.

Nagaland: Kevi Z. Savino

Kavi joined Pratham in 2006 to help implement a pilot, and then stayed on to set up the program in the state. In her last three years, she has been involved in implementing some very important programmes in the state, such as setting up and running 913 community based libraries and an English Basics Reading Programme in 1306 government schools across the state. “The great thing about working with Pratham”, Kevi says, “ is the diversity of roles I have been given the opportunity to function in - from content development to logistics and budget planning; from training to monitoring programmes and interacting with people - in the Government, in the community”. Prior to joining Pratham, Kevi worked as a features writer with India Today’s Travel Plus.

Orissa: Puspanjali Parida

Puspanjali Parida is the State Head for Odisha, India. She has done Bachelor Degree in Education and continuing her PGDRD (Diploma in Rural Development) in Revenshaw University.  Since 2001 she has been associated with projects related to Adult. She worked with different NGOs before becoming a member of Pratham in 2004.

Punjab: Avneet Kaur Malhi

Avneet Kaur Malhi is the State Coordinator for Pratham Punjab. A Post graduate from Mumbai University, she worked as a Compliance Auditor for 6 years and was actively involved in the CSR activities undertaken for the education and welfare of children of factory workers. She joined Pratham in 2008 and is  responsible for the planning, implementation, monitoring and evaluation of Parrho Punjab - a Learning Excellence Program in 20 districts of the state, undertaken in partnership with Sarv Siksha Abhiyaan. She also manages and coordinates the Block Excellence Program in 38 blocks across 20 districts & a small direct program for children of factory workers at the HMEL Refinery in Bathinda. 

Rajasthan: Suraj

Suraj holds a Post Graduate Diploma in Development Management (PGDDM) from Tata-Dhan Academy, Madurai. After joining Pratham in 2008 as Programme Officer, he was instrumental in implementation of different project and programs in Ajmer which includes Read India, a District Resource Centre and a Mother’s Literacy Project. He has strong exposure of Program execution and Participatory Rural Appraisal (PRA). His areas of interest are designing, development and implementation of development interventions. He has strong interest in human resource development for not-for-profit organizations where he aims to develop likeminded people to become part of development sector.

Tamil Nadu: Balaji Samapth

Balaji Sampath completed his B.Tech in Electronics from IIT Madras in 1994 and then obtained a Ph.D in Electrical Engineering from the University of Maryland, College Park. After completing his doctorate, in 1997 Balaji returned to India to work full-time on education and health issues in villages. He and a team of likeminded people started AID INDIA, a well known non-profit that works on education and health issues. From 1997 to 2000, Balaji worked on community health programs and from 2001 he has been actively involved in addressing issues in school education. From 2003, AID INDIA has been working closely as a network partner of Pratham and Balaji has been playing an active role in coordinating Pratham programs in Tamilnadu. For his education activities, Balaji and his team was awarded the Ashoka Fellowship, Lemelson Inventor Certificate, MIT Indus Technovator's Award 2005.

Uttarakhand: Shyam Dayal Singh

Shyam has done MBA in Rural Management from Xavier Institute of Management Bhubaneswar (XIMB). He has got a unique opportunity to work with different organisations from both Corporate and Development Sector. This provides him a broader perspective with respect to different issues related to civil society, and he hopes to contribute in providing a better framework and solution for them. He has worked   on the child centred community development projects with a right based holistic approach. His area of work involves different domains of community development such as Education, Child Rights and Livelihood. Presently Shyam Dayal is State Coordinator of Uttarakhand.

Uttar Pradesh: Ajit Solanki

Masters & M.Phil. in Social Work from University of Lucknow, Ajit B Solanki’s has an exposure to Human Resource section of various industries, he moved to Jaunpur to join Pratham on a JPAL-Pratham joint Research Projectt on Information campaign and Community Mobilization.Now he heads the State of UP-monitoring the Read India & Urban Program in the various districts of UP. He has witnessed the scale up of Read India in form of Pratham’s Partnership with Government since 2006 & Pratham’s reach to every village of UP in 2008. In 2009 he has taken responsibility of Urban Program to work with out of school children of slum areas of 5 cities of UP. He believes that there is still a long way to go, and a lot more has to be done for underprivileged section of the society.

West Bengal: Animesh Chatterjee

A post graduate in social work from Vishva Bharati University Animesh joined as an intern in October 2006. His passion for education made him stay on take on the state level responsibilities. Animesh simply loves his work.