Arti Ahuja is a senior public policy and public affairs leader with over three decades of experience in government service, health systems, social protection, and labour policy. An Indian Administrative Service officer (1990-2024), she has held senior central and state government posts including Secretary, Ministry of Labour and Employment; Secretary, Chemicals & Petrochemicals; Additional Secretary, Ministry of Health & Family Welfare; and multiple principal secretary roles in Odisha. She led large system reforms spanning healthcare, nutrition, social security and disaster response, and chaired the Employment Working Group during India's G20 presidency. She was a faculty at LBSNAA Mussoorie in two spells and continues to engage in training senior civil servants on the issues of social sector, behavioural economics etc.
Currently she serves as NHRC's Special Monitor for Business and Human Rights and sits on advisory and steering bodies across the public-health, gender, climate, nutrition and digital-inclusion spaces. She also advises international organizations, and contributes as contributor, editor and faculty for academic and public policy programmes.
Her government career highlights include instituting major initiatives for India's unorganized workers, leading pandemic response and public-health policy during COVID-19, negotiating labour and social-security commitments at ILO and G20, and reforming child nutrition and welfare programmes in Odisha. She also led the emergency health response to the 1999 Super Cyclone in Odisha and has been recognized for systems-level improvements in service delivery and transparency.
She has represented India at global fora (World Bank/IMF spring meetings, World Economic Forum India Summit, EROPA), served as a member of the Independent Expert Group for the Global Nutrition Report, and held visiting and honorary research roles such as Senior Honorary Research Associate at UCL's Institute for Global Health. She chairs juries for FICCI awards in areas including industrial parks, chemicals & petrochemicals, and women's empowerment.
Her scholarly work spans health systems, nutrition and social policy; selected publications include contributions to Social Science & Medicine, the Global Nutrition Report, WHO Bulletin, The Lancet, BMJ, Economic & Political Weekly and edited volumes on nutrition (Routledge / ISB Hyderabad). She is also a frequent peer reviewer and op-ed contributor.
