KOCHI: In a development which is likely to benefit the state, senior Kerala Cadre IAS officer Aruna Sundararajan was on Thursday appointed as Secretary, Ministry of Electronics and Information Technology, following a major bureaucratic reshuffle effected by the Centre.
The portfolios of Aruna Sundararajan, who was the Steel Secretary and Aruna Sharma, both of whom belong to the IAS 1982 batch, were swapped in the reshuffle. According to the Department of Personnel and Training(DoPT) order, Aruna Sharma will be the new Secretary, Steel.
Going by the track record and expertise of Aruna Sundararajan, wife of KMRL managing director and Additional Chief Secretary Elias George--she was instrumental in establishing Kerala Government’s IT Department way back in 1998. Also as the state’s maiden IT Secretary, she had conceived and spearheaded pathbreaking Akshaya project. Besides, IIM-K and Kochi Infopark, which changed the state’s IT landscape, the groundwork for Kochi SmartCity took place under her watch-- the state would stand to benefit a great deal as a result of her being appointed to the key post.