IT chief shunted out of office for not meeting government's digital goals

A week after he was asked to go on leave for his team's failure, the state Information Technology (IT) secretary VK Gautam was shunted to a lesser post yesterday. Gautam has been under fire for failure to get digital platforms operational to execute various welfare schemes, such as scholarship distribution, farmers' loan waivers.

VK Gautam

Last week, the Cabinet underlined the IT department's failure when it decided to disburse scholarships offline despite past scams in which educational institutes had usurped government money by fabricating the number of eligible students. The IT department had failed to compile a database of students across the state. Similarly, the farm loan waiver disbursement did not work because of faulty platforms and erroneous data.

New man in charge
SVR Srinivas, officer on special duty in the Dharavi Redevelopment Project, who had fallen out of favour in view of controversies in BMC, was given temporary charge of IT. Starting yesterday, he was officially made responsible for running the department.

Gautam will now be principal secretary (Accounts and Treasury) in the Finance Department at Mantralaya. With this transfer, some other IAS officers - seniors and juniors - too were transferred in a bureaucratic reshuffle on Tuesday.

Vandana Krishna, additional chief secretary (Accounts and Treasury), Finance Department, has been posted as additional chief secretary (Reforms), Finance Department. RA Rajeev, principal secretary (Reforms), has been shifted to Expenditure in the Finance Department.