Telecom Lead India: Department of information technology secretary J Satyanarayana and consumer affairs secretary Pankaj Agarwal, former head of the National Internet Exchange of India, have emerged as the front-runners for the DoT secretary post.
Economic Times on Monday reported that the telecom secretary’s post will fall vacant when incumbent R Chandrasekhar retires at the end of the month.
During R Chandrasekhar’s time, both 2G auctions — November 2012 and March 2013 — flopped. Also, he could not address problems faced by the telecom industry after the Supreme Court order on February 2, 2012.
But Chandrasekhar took strong action against telecom giants such as Bharti Airtel, Vodafone, Idea Cellular, Tata Communications, Reliance Communications, etc. For example, controversies such as 3G roaming pact, accounting irregularities, etc. will be solved soon.
Satyanarayana has strong backers in the telecom department (DoT). He joined the department of information technology in February 2012.
The report says that Agarwal is front-runner for the telecom secretary’s post as he is seen as a bureaucrat who is industry-friendly and proactive and a crisis manager.
Agarwal, a 1978-batch IAS officer, has earlier served as joint secretary in the department of information technology.
Satyanarayana has implemented several key e-Governance projects from late 1990s. He implemented Computerisation of the Registration Department of Andhra Pradesh, (the CARD Project). Between 2000-2003, he was part of the SWAT e-Governance team of Chandrababu Naidu, the then CM of Andhra Pradesh and he implemented e-Governance programs like e-Seva Project and e-Procurement platform.
In 2003, he founded the National Institute of Smart Governance. Between 2003-08, NISG was involved with every important e-Governance initiative of the Government of India, including the computerisation of the Ministry of Company Affairs and Passport Seva. Sathyanarayana is a believer in the concept of Public Private Partnership for execution of e-Governance projects.
