Smrity Kumar

Smrity Kumar is the Associate Director of Programs and Project Lead for the National Oxygen Grid based in New Delhi, India.

At the One Health Trust, Ms. Kumar is leading the National Oxygen Grid (NOG) project funded by the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation and USAID. The project aims to build a National Oxygen Grid which will help in preventing unnecessary deaths due to lack of medical oxygen and will mitigate oxygen shortages in India during COVID-19 and beyond. The premise of the grid is to set up 1,500 PSA (pneumatic swing adsorption) plants in mostly peri-urban and rural health care facilities across public and private sectors. The NOG will leverage existing liquid medical oxygen assets, including storage and transportation tanks and incoming assets of pneumatic swing adsorption (PSA) plants, oxygen concentrators, and cylinders. Ms. Kumar also oversees an OHT project in India focused on antimicrobial resistance and zoonotic diseases.

Before joining OHT, Ms. Kumar worked with REACH, where she was Chief of Party for a USAID-funded tuberculosis project and later, project director of a global fund grant for REACH.

Ms. Kumar received a Master’s degree in Rural Development from Xavier Institute of Social Service and an MBA from IIBM India. She has also earned certificates in corporate governance, six sigma, and project management.

Ms. Kumar has presented her work at many international conferences and showcased her projects across multiple platforms. She has extensive experience working with the Indian government at both national and state levels, as well as with the national health system. Much of her work has been adopted as policy by national programs in India.