Born in Allahabad, Uttar Pradesh, India, Anil Swarup earned his Master’s Degree in Political Science from Allahabad University in 1978 where he was also awarded the Chancellor’s Gold Medal for Best All-Round Student. After initially qualifying for the Indian Police Service in 1980, he joined the Indian Administrative Service (IAS) in 1981 and won the Directors Gold Medal for the best Officer Trainee at the Lal Bahadur Shastri National Academy of Administration amongst the officers of his batch. As a civil servant, he held various assignments both within the State (Uttar Pradesh) and the Central government. As Director General in the Ministry a Labour, he formulated and implemented arguably the largest health insurance scheme (Rashtriya Swasthya Bima Yojana) for the poorest of the poor. Using IT applications, the scheme was paperless, portable and smart card based. It came to be recognised by UN Organisations. During the final years of his career, he served as Secretary to Government of India in the Ministry of Coal where he handled the aftermath of the coal scam. Thereafter, he served as Secretary, School Education and Literacy where he attempted to foster public private partnership to improve quality of school education.

He has authored five books: “Not Just a Civil Servant”. “Ethical Dilemmas of a Civil Servant”, “No More a Civil Servant”, “Encounters with Politicians”, and “You Can Make It Happen”.

As a strategic thinker and an innovative leader, he won several other awards and nominations, the prominent ones being: Nominated as one of the “policy change agent” by The Economics Times during the years 2010, 2012, 2015 & 2016. He was selected as one of the 35 “Action Heroes” in India Today’s 35th Annual Edition.