Gupta was the founder and member-secretary of the
Asian Development Research Institute in Patna, a non-profit organization focused on social science research established in 1991. He was also the director of the Centre for Economic Policy and Public Finance (CEPPF), which was set up by the government of Bihar as a public finance research institute. Gupta's research focused on the structure of the
Bihar's economy as well as on various development issues in Bihar from a political economy perspective. An
economist by profession, he focused on industrial economics, studying the political economy and trying to derive linkages between the capitalist transformation of India and the implied implications on societal growth. He also studied Bihar's industrial sector and compared the political economies of Bihar and
Madhya Pradesh, adjacent states, to drive an understanding of the linkage between governance models and growth. In a statement on his death,
Bihar's chief minister Nitish Kumar recounted the contributions made by Gupta for Bihar's economic reforms. Representing Bihar in the committee, Gupta gave his dissent note for the final recommendation report of the committee. Speaking about his dissent, he would later say that the dissent was a technical critique of variables that went into the Index developed by the committee. Specifically, he had advocated for the inclusion of per capita income instead of monthly per capita income and the inclusion of variables like per capita electrical connectivity, infant mortality, and female literacy among other variables. He held advisory positions in various governmental committees including membership of the Bihar state finance commission, the committee on land acquisition, committee on financial resources, and the Indian government expert group of the planning commission. and Member Executive Committee, of the Indian government's
National literacy mission (NLM). Gupta received the
Padma Shri, India's fourth highest civilian honor, posthumously in 2022. == Personal life and death ==