Professor Arun Kumar works for hydropower and pumped storage development, floating solar, environmental management of water bodies, energy economics and policy, civil and hydropower engineering education. He is Chairman of Hydro Research committee of Ministry of Power, Member of Central Advisory Committee of Central Electricity Regulatory Commission, independent director of KSEBL, state power utility of Kerala and also Vice President of Federation of Indian small hydropower.  

Prof Kumar has been a board member of International Hydropower Association (2021 – 23), MNRE Chair Professor (2013 – 18), NEEPCO chair professor (2022-24) and served on Board of NHPC Ltd, Govt. of India PSU for hydropower (2015 – 19) as independent director. He served CLA for Hydropower on SRREN for IPCC during 2009-2011. He headed Hydro and Renewable Energy Department, IIT Roorkee from 1998 to 2011. Prof Kumar is a fellow of ASCE, IHA, IWRS, IWWA and member ASME, IEEE, ICID, AWWA, AWWA India and SESI. He also received several awards from CBIP (1991, 2025), IIT Roorkee (2022), Institution of Engineers (2015, 2016), Hydropower Association (2017) etc. Prof. Kumar has over 43 years of experience in the field of hydropower and environmental management of river and lakes.