Navin Kumar

Kumar was born on 29 August 1952 – a son to Awadhesh Kumar and Kumud Kumar. He received his early education at Zila School, Bhagalpur and Patna Collegiate School before graduating in Physics with Honors from Patna Science College. He then completed his Masters in Physics from Patna Science College and joined the State Bank of India as Probationary Officer in 1974. Kumar joined Indian Administrative Service and began his government service in the year 1975.

Kumar joined Indian Administrative Service in 1975 and belongs to the Bihar Cadre. In 1977 he was posted as Sub-Divisional Officer of Samastipur. He then went on to serve various districts of Bihar and Jharkhand (erstwhile part of Bihar) as District Magistrate. Between 1988 and 1990 he took central deputation in Ministry of Water Resources as National Coordinator for an engineers' training program. In 1990 he became PS to then Finance Minister Yashwant Sinha under Chandra Shekhar Government. When the government fell in June 1991, he shifted to Department of Economic Affairs under Montek Singh Ahluwalia.

From 1993 to 1996 he was posted as Chief Technical Adviser to a food aid program - funded jointly by the World Food Program and a Commonwealth institution run by the British Government - in Sierra Leone. After returning from Sierra Leone he was posted in Bihar as head of Bihar State Electricity Board. In 1999, he again went on Central Deputation as Joint Secretary in the Finance Ministry handling external assistance from EC, UK and Canada. He served on this position until 2004 when he was made Director General of Doordarshan. In 2006, he also took additional charge as CEO of Prasar Bharti. In same year, he was posted back in Bihar, where he served as State Finance Secretary and IT Secretary, setting up e-governance systems linking the Common Service Centers in Panchayats, computerizing treasury operations and setting up a comprehensive public finance management system. In 2010, he joined Ministry of Urban Development as Secretary and was also made Chairman of various Metro Rail Corporations of Indian cities such as Delhi, Bangalore, Kolkata and Chennai.

In September 2011, he returned to Bihar when he was named Chief Secretary of the State. He served on this position until his retirement from Indian Administrative Service in 2012. In March 2013, a selection committee headed by then Finance Minister P. Chidambaram cleared Kumar’s name to head Special Purpose Vehicle to handle the Goods and Services Tax Network.

In March 2013, Kumar was selected as Chairman of Goods and Services Tax Network by a selection committee. The selection committee, headed by Finance Minister P Chidambaram, chose Kumar from a list of six people, including three more Indian Administrative Services officers and two Indian Revenue Service officers. Along with Finance Minister, the committee consisted of Unique Identification Authority Chairman Nandan Nilekani and Empowered Committee of State Finance Ministers Chairman Sushil Modi.

Goods and Services Tax Network (GSTN) was set up as a Section 8 (under new companies Act, not for profit companies are governed under section 8), Non-Government, Private Limited Company. It was incorporated on March 28, 2013. The Government of India holds 24.5% equity in GSTN and all States of the Indian Union, including NCT of Delhi and Puducherry, and the Empowered Committee of State Finance Ministers (EC), together hold another 24.5%. Balance 51% equity is with non-Government financial institutions. The Company was set up primarily to provide IT infrastructure and services to the Central and State Governments, tax payers and other stakeholders for implementation of the Goods and Services Tax (GST). The Authorized Capital of the company is Rs. 100 Million.

Goods and Services Tax (GST) was launched on the midnight of 30 June 2017, 17 years after it was first proposed in 2000. The launch was marked by a historic midnight (30 June - 1 July 2017) session of both the houses of Parliament convened at the Central Hall of the Parliament.

The Network is expected to process as many as 3.5 billion invoices each month, with the country’s 8 million direct taxpayers required to file up to 37 tax returns in a year. The system has the capability to handle nearly 9 million users and up to 120,000 transactions per second.

Kumar is married to Rajni Kumar and they have two children. He currently resides in Gurgaon with his wife. He enjoys, painting, writing blogs and computer programming in his leisure time. Kumar's younger brother Udai Kumar is CEO of the Metropolitan Stock Exchange of India Ltd (MSEI).