He also received a PhD degree in economics from Centre for Development Studies (affiliated to Jawaharlal Nehru University), Trivandrum in 1984.
[4] Shah was chiefly responsible for drafting the paradigm shift in the management of water resources enunciated in the 12th Five Year Plan.
[15] He is also the first president of the Bharat Rural Livelihoods Foundation, which supports innovative civil society action in close partnership with state governments.
[16][17][18] He also chaired the Government of India's Task Force on the National Social Assistance Programme which presented a landmark report in 2013.
[21] In 1990, he co-founded Samaj Pragati Sahayog, which is today one of the largest grass-roots initiatives for water and livelihood security, working with its partners on a million acres of land across 72 of India's most backward districts.
Mihir Shah has spent nearly three decades living and working in central tribal India, forging a new paradigm of inclusive and sustainable development.
[22] Mihir Shah, along with his colleagues penned their experiences in the book, India's Drylands: Tribal Societies and Development through Environmental Regeneration, which was published by Oxford University Press in 1998.
This is the first time since the National Water Policy was first drafted in 1987 that a person from the outside government has been asked to chair this committee (click on image below).