Professor Arun Kumarendu Singh, full-time Professor and Head of Paediatrics at IIT Kharagpur's School of Medicine, has been appointed Advisor to the Department of Health and Family Welfare, Government of West Bengal, for a two-year term. The appointment, announced on 10 November 2026, centres on strengthening maternal and child healthcare across the state.

Who Is Professor Singh

Widely recognised as the 'Father of Sick Newborn Care Units (SNCUs)' in India, Professor Singh is credited with architecting much of the country's modern neonatal healthcare infrastructure. His contributions span the development and scaling of specialised newborn care systems that have made life-saving neonatal services accessible to vulnerable infants in underserved communities.

His acclaimed Purulia Model demonstrated that high-quality neonatal care could be delivered through decentralised, affordable, and compassionate systems — a proof of concept that has influenced replication efforts across states. He also played a foundational role in establishing human milk banking and early intervention facilities in India.

Contributions to National Health Policy

Professor Singh's influence extends well beyond clinical practice. As a key technical leader associated with the Ministry of Health and Family Welfare, Government of India, he contributed to the design of the Rashtriya Bal Swasthya Karyakram (RBSK) — including its large-scale architecture for screening and early intervention covering childhood diseases, congenital conditions, nutritional deficiencies, and developmental delays.

He also contributed to the development of the Mother and Child Protection Card, a tool for maternal and child healthcare monitoring that reflects his commitment to preventive and inclusive health systems. Prior to IIT Kharagpur, he held senior academic and clinical leadership roles at IPGMER and SSKM Hospital, Kolkata, and AIIMS Jodhpur.

What the Appointment Signals for West Bengal

The Government of West Bengal has stated that the appointment of Professor Singh, alongside obstetrics and gynaecology specialist Arup Kumar Maji, reflects the importance of experienced clinical leadership in advancing the state's maternal and child healthcare priorities. The dual appointment suggests a deliberate effort to infuse specialist medical expertise directly into policy planning.

This comes amid persistent challenges in neonatal and maternal health outcomes in several districts of West Bengal, where the kind of decentralised care models Professor Singh pioneered could yield measurable improvements.

IIT Kharagpur's Medical School Ambitions

For IIT Kharagpur, the advisory role represents more than individual recognition — it validates the calibre of full-time clinical faculty the institute has assembled within its Medical School. The institution is being developed as an interdisciplinary model combining medical education and clinical services with established strengths in engineering, artificial intelligence, biomedical technologies, computational sciences, and translational research.

Professor Suman Chakraborty, Director of IIT Kharagpur, said: 'We are exceptionally proud that Prof Arun Kumarendu Singh, one of the pioneering architects of India's newborn healthcare revolution, is a full-time Professor and Head of Paediatrics at IIT Kharagpur's Medical School. His work has transformed the way neonatal healthcare reaches vulnerable communities, and his contributions to national child-health programmes have created an enduring legacy of clinical excellence and public service.'

Professor Chakraborty added that the advisory appointment was 'a fitting recognition of his exceptional stature' and 'a matter of great pride for IIT Kharagpur that a member of our full-time medical faculty has been entrusted with contributing to such an important public-health mission.'

The institute envisages leveraging Professor Singh's neonatal expertise to advance innovations in high-risk pregnancy monitoring, newborn intensive care, AI-enabled clinical decision support, remote healthcare delivery, and affordable diagnostic technologies. As his two-year advisory tenure gets under way, the convergence between IIT Kharagpur's technological capabilities and West Bengal's public health system will be closely watched.