J Satyanarayana is new IT secretary at ministry of communications & IT

NEW DELHI: J Satyanarayana, a 1977 batch IAS officer, has been appointed as the new IT secretary at ministry of communications and IT.

Satyanarayana, who was serving as additional chief secretary, government of Andhra Pradesh, replaces R Chandrashekhar, who was handling the additional role of IT secretary. Chandrashekhar continues to be the secretary, department of telecom.

Satyanarayana is not new to IT projects. In his earlier role, he founded the National Institute of Smart Governance as its CEO. He was frontrunner for the IT secretary’s post, along with B K Gairola, director general, National Informatics Center for over six months.

Popularly known as “J Sat’ in the Indian bureaucrats circle, he was serving as the chief commissioner of land administration (CCLA) in Andhra Pradesh till last year.

Between 2000-2003, he was part of the e-governance team of former Andhra CM Chandrababu Naidu. He also computerised the registration department of Andhra Pradesh, better known as the CARD Project.

His role will be extremely important as India looks to automate its government services delivery and integrate Aadhaar number in subsidy systems to plug corruption. The finance minister has allocated about Rs 5,300 crore to department of IT in the Union budget 2012-13 for various IT projects.