Ashok Agarwal, MPH '84

Ashok Agarwal, MPH has a background in both general medicine and public health initiatives. Over the last 25 years, he has been the driving force behind the creation of several unique public health and rural development institutions throughout India. After graduating from the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health (formerly the School of Hygiene and Public Health) with a Master of Public Health degree in 1983, he set up the Indian Institute of Health Management Research (IIHMR) in Jaipur, the first such institution in Asia. The Institute today has expanded to include centers in Delhi, Bangalore, Kolkata and Kabul. In addition, he is the founder of a blood bank and hematology research center in Kolkata, which was designed to provide the city’s impoverished residents with the most modern hematological services in eastern India.  He is the managing trustee of Bhoruka Charitable Trust, which provides education, water, sanitation, rural health and economic development in 800 villages in Rajasthan alone.  He is also involved in the world’s largest user fee-based rural drinking water supply, Aapni Yojana, supplying  water to 350 villages, or about half a million people.

Dr. Agarwal serves on several government boards and committees in India – focusing primarily on water, health and rural development issues. Presently, he is an active member of the boards of Sobhasaria Engineering College, BRCM College of Engineering & Technology and the Environmental Sanitation Institute.