Dr Kala Seetharam Sridhar – Head, Public Policy Research Group

Kala Seetharam Sridhar is currently Head, PPRG, and Senior Research Fellow, Public Affairs Centre, Bangalore, India, prior to which she was Ford Public Affairs Fellow. Her primary research interests are in urban and regional economics/policies, urban infrastructure, state and local finances, and developmental issues.

Kala received her Ph.D. (Public Policy & Management) from the Ohio State University, USA, and M.S. (Urban & Regional Planning) from the University of Iowa, USA. Prior to joining PAC, Kala was with the National Institute of Public Finance and Policy in New Delhi, before that, was Assistant and Associate Professor at the Indian Institute of Management in Lucknow, India, was Visiting Sir Ratan Tata Trust Fellow at the Institute for Social and Economic Change, Bangalore, India, and a Visiting Fellow at United Nations University's World Institute for Development Economics Research (UNU-WIDER). Kala is also a consultant for the Institute of South Asian Studies, National University of Singapore.

Kala has published in many refereed international journals, and is a peer reviewer for many. Her paper "Impact of Land Use Regulations on Suburbanization: Evidence from India's Cities" won the First Prize Medal for completed research on development in the Ninth Global Development Network conference held in Brisbane, Australia, in January 2008 (http://www.gdnet.org/middle.php?oid=1217).

Kala is the author of two books – Incentives for Regional Development: Competition Among Sub-National Governments, which was published by Palgrave Macmillan in 2005, and Costs and Challenges of Local Urban Services: Evidence from India’s Cities, co-authored, to be published by Oxford University Press India. In 2007, the Indian Council of Social Science Research and the Institute for Social and Economic Change recognized her work for the VKRV Rao Prize for 2005. (http://www.isec.ac.in/vkrvraoprize.htm).

Kala can be reached at Kala@pacindia.org