Mr. Vijayanand is an officer of the 1981 batch of the IAS, belonging to the Kerala cadre. Almost his entire career was in Rural Development, Local Governance, and Decentralized Planning. He coordinated Kerala's People's Planning for fifteen years. During this period he nurtured Kudumbashree, a highly successful SHG programme in the country and was active in moulding the Kerala Institute of Local Administration (KILA) into an institution of excellence in the training of Elected Representatives. As Secretary of the Ministry of Panchayati Raj during 2015-16, he was instrumental in introducing the Gram Panchayat Development Plan (GPDP) in the country.

Prof. Dr. N. SRIDHARAN was former Director at School of Planning and Architecture, Bhopal and New Delhi. He has also served as Chairperson of the Educational Standing Committee of Institute of Town Planners’ India and one of the Vice-Presidents of Regional Science Association, India. Dr. Sridharan has more than 33 years of experience in the field of Urban and Regional Planning. He has contributed significantly through his work in the fields of Urban Governance & finance, Peri-Urban Development, rural development and Spatial Data Infrastructure.

Dr. Ashish Kumar Goel has graduated from IIT Delhi and is an IAS of UP cadre, batch 1995. He has served as Additional Secretary in the Ministry of Rural Development and also in the State of Uttara Pradesh as Secretary, Department of Rural Development. Through his work, he has contributed in policies for rural development and Panchayati raj, especially in the field of sustainability and inclusive growth in rural areas.

"Zeenat Niazi, Sr. vice-president and chief knowledge officer of the Development Alternatives Group, where she guides public policy and action research focused on local and national strategies for sustainable development, climate change, and natural resource management. Trained as an architect with a specialization in rural housing and habitat in the global South, her core competence is in building resilience in human settlements through Sustainable Consumption and Production (SCP) strategies, especially green and inclusive circular economy models. She is registered as a Ph.D. scholar at the TERI School of Advanced Studies, New Delhi India and also teaches on Sustainability at the Anant National University, Ahmedabad, India, and is also a guest lecturer at the School of Planning and Architecture, New Delhi and the Nirma University, Ahmedabad. She is currently a member of the Multi-stakeholder Advisory Committee (MAC) of the Sustainable Buildings and Construction Programme of UN’s One Planet Network, member of the Steering Committee of the Green Economy Coalition (GEC) in India and of the Strategic Steering Committee of UNEP PAGE Programme in India. She is part of the Task Force on Green and Inclusive Circular Economy for Angul District in the State of Orissa, India, chair of the Committee on Rural Housing and member - CED 51- committee on prefabricated materials of the Bureau of Indian Standards. In the past, she has been a founding member and Co-Chair of the Board of the Climate Action Network South Asia, member of the Task force of the Rural Housing, Ministry of Rural Development, Government of India and a member of the Sub-Committee on Construction and Demolition Waste Management in Urban Areas of the NITI Aayog, Government of India."

Shri Sunil Kumar is an IAS officer of batch 1987 from the UP cadre and is currently serving as Secretary, Ministry of Panchayati raj. He has been instrumental in strengthen the democratic governance processes, empowering PRIs, bringing participation, transparency, accountability in the PRI system. He has contributed in the IT governance aspects in improved planning, localization of Sustainable Development Goals, Gram Panchayat Development Planning, Gram Swaraj Movement, integration of Public Finance Management System across Panchayats etc.