Dr O.P. Agarwal is currently the India Country Director of the World Resources Institute and the CEO of its Indian arm, known as WRI India. He was a member of the IAS from 1979 to 2007 and was allocated to the Assam cadre. He held several positions, both under the central government and the Government of Assam. Among them were Joint Secretary in charge of Urban Transport in the Ministry of Urban Development and Secretary for Transport in Assam. He was the principal author of the National Urban Transport Policy for the country, which was adopted in 2006 and has remained the key document guiding urban transport investments since then.

He has worked in the World Bank for 6 years as its global Urban Transport Adviser in Washington DC. He has been with the World Resources Institute since June 2017.

He has written several papers on urban transport policy and governance issues. His recent book entitled “Emerging Paradigms in Urban Mobility Planning, Financing and Implementation” was published by Elsevier.

He has a PhD from the Indian Institute of Technology, Delhi, a Master’s degree in Transportation from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, and a Bachelor’s degree in Electrical Engineering from the Indian Institute of Technology, Madras.