Shanker is the Country Procurement Lead for India and is based in New Delhi (India). He has a post-graduate degree in Mechanical Engineering from the Indian Institute of Technology (IIT-BHU) and a Graduate Diploma in Purchasing & Supply from the Chartered Institute of Procurement and Supply (CIPS), U.K.
Apart from managing the Bank Procurement Team in India (since July 2014) for providing support to Bank-financed operations, he has been working on procurement capacity building and procurement reform initiatives. He has been the Task Leader for (a) Development of an Assessment Tool for Public Procurement Agencies in Health Sector in India (2009); (b) Conducting a Market survey of manufacturers and suppliers of health sector goods for improving procurement performance (2010); (c) Conducting a study of the operation of dispute resolution mechanisms in India (2014); (d) Setting up procurement observatories in India (2015); (e) Improving the functioning of Dispute Resolution Boards (2016); (f) Developing Capacity of Training Institutions in India in World Bank’s Procurement Framework (2018); (g) Developing and Launching a Certificate Course in Contractual Dispute Resolution (2018); (h) Global Study on the effectiveness of Engineering, Procurement and Construction (EPC) Contracts in Road/Highway Sector (2020); and (h) Global Study on development impacts of Framework Agreements (2021).
He was also instrumental in mobilizing the procurement community for the setting up of the Public Procurement Professional Association of India (2020).
Before joining the Bank, he was working as Deputy Head (Contracts and Procurement) for the Department for International Development (DFID), Government of U.K. at the New Delhi office.
Apart from authoring various blogs, he has also contributed a Guidebook on Framework Agreements.