Ram Sewak Sharma joined the
Indian Administrative Service (IAS) in 1978.He belongs to the Jharkhand cadre. In 1986, he wrote a program in
DBASE, a programming language that would keep a record of all stolen firearms in the crime-prone district. As soon as a firearm would be found, the programme would run a search query among thousands of age-old records. This software enabled the solving of 22 cases in just 30 days. He held responsibilities in his home cadre of Jharkhand as well as in ministries of the Central government, including, as Secretary, Department of Electronics and Information Technology and Chief Secretary of Jharkhand .
TRAI He was appointed the Chairman of
Telecom Regulatory Authority of India (TRAI) from August 2015 for a period of three years. At the end of this tenure, he was given a further extension of two years. As Chairman of TRAI, he steered the adoption of
net neutrality regulations in India. He has taken measures to enable
consumer choice in determining market outcomes, e.g. a new framework for broadcasting and cable services, regulations for mobile number portability, and the use of crowd-sourced information or field measurements to inform customers. As the TRAI chairman, his goal to gradually reduce Interconnect Usage Charges earned him acclaim from some and criticism from others. Critics allege that the decision is biased towards
Jio while those defending TRAI claim that reducing these charges was necessary for the continuous growth of the sector.
CoWIN He is the chairperson of an empowered committee for administration of COVID-19 vaccine delivery technology platform (Co-WIN).
CoWIN along with the national COVID-19 vaccination campaign was launched by the Prime Minister on January 16, 2021. Dr. Sharma was called back from retirement to take the responsibility of developing and executing the CoWIN or the COVID-19 Vaccine Intelligence Network. India crossed a mark of administering 2 billion vaccinations in July, 2022. The country also signed an MoU with the government of the Co-operative Republic of Guyana for sharing CoWIN. Dr. Sharma also served on the National Expert Group on Vaccine Administration for COVID-19, a body constituted by the Government of India to tackle the
COVID-19 pandemic in India.
NHA In February 2021, Sharma was appointed as the chief executive officer of the
National Health Authority of India, a body responsible for implementing two health initiatives of the Government of India,
Ayushman Bharat Jan Arogya Yojana (AB PM-JAY) which is a public health insurance scheme and
Ayushman Bharat Digital Mission, a platform to promote digitization of healthcare in India and served the office till January 2023. == Controversies ==