Jawhar Sircar has spent more than 41 years in public service, of which the last 14 years were in education, culture & media. He had specialised for over a dozen years in finance and industry

He served as CEO, Prasar Bharati (2012-2016), the world's largest public service broadcaster, that looks after 413 stations of All India Radio and 67 of Doordarshan -TV stations. Though he quit in 2016 after differences, the NDA Government honoured and acknowledged his services. He could turn around the public broadcaster in adopting digital technologies and move away from infructuous investment in obsolete transmission modes He was awarded the 'Best CEO of the Year 2013' by EMMA for radical improvement of DD News and also honoured by the Institute of Directors.

Before this, Jawhar Sircar was Secretary, Ministry of Culture of the Govt. of India (from 2008 to 2012 - the longest-serving one), where he introduced several policy reforms in cultural administration. He took up several new schemes and mammoth ventures like worldwide celebrations of the 150th anniversary of Swami Vivekananda and Rabindranath Tagore. He was awarded the first ever British Museum Silver Medal for 'outstanding contribution' to museum reforms.

On 2nd December, 2009, PM, Manmohan Singh said:

I compliment Jawhar Sircar for his enthusiasm, for his commitment, for his knowledge and I am very happy that the Ministry of Culture is being served by such a very distinguished civil servant of our country.

Prior to this, he was the first Additional Secretary & Development Commissioner of the Govt. of India for MSMEs (Micro, Small & Medium Enterprises), a new class that replaced the earlier archaic Small-Scale Industries (SSI).

In West Bengal, he has served two terms as Principal Secretary — in charge of Education and in charge of Commerce and Industries.