Know all about Ajay Kumar, the new chairman of UPSC

Ajay Kumar, who served as India’s Defence Secretary for almost three-and-a-half years from August 2019 to October 2022, has been appointed as the new chairman of the Union Public Service Commission (UPSC) as per a notice issued by the Department of Personnel and Training on Tuesday (May 13).

Who is Ajay Kumar?

Sixty-two-year-old Kumar is one of the country’s senior-most bureaucrats who retired as Defence Secretary in 2022. He had the distinction of being the longest-serving secretary in the Ministry of Defence.

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He is a 1985-batch Indian Administrative Service (IAS) officer from the Kerala cadre.

Education

Kumar is an electrical engineer from the Indian Institute of Technology (IIT), Kanpur. After graduating from IIT, he acquired a master’s degree in development economics from the University of Minnesota, USA.

He went on to complete a doctorate in business administration from the Carlson School of Management at the University of Minnesota.

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During his time at the same university, he was awarded two fellowships. He also had the honour of being recognised as a distinguished alumnus by IIT Kanpur.

Key posts at Centre

After he was deputed to the Union government, Kumar held several important posts.

Before he was appointed Defence Secretary in 2019, Kumar served as the Defence Production Secretary for almost two years.

He was Additional Secretary in the Ministry of Electronics and Information Technology for four years. Before that, he was Joint Secretary in the same ministry and held additional charge of Director General at the National Informatics Centre from 2010 to 2014.

Significant achievements

Kumar was deeply involved in creating the defence startup ecosystem through the Innovations for Defence Excellence (iDEX) programme from 2017 to 2022. He worked in the corporatisation of the Ordnance Factories Board.

He helped set up the policy framework for startups in the Artificial Intelligence, drone, and space sectors.

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Kumar was part of the team that worked on the performance enhancement of Public Sector Undertakings (PSUs) in the defence industry. Several transformative reforms were carried out under the Atmanirbhar Bharat initiative.

He was also a key member of the group that implemented the Digital India initiatives that resulted in the creation of the Unified Payments Interface (UPI), Aadhaar, MyGov.in, Jeevan Pramaan, and Government e Marketplace.

Stint in Kerala

Kumar spent nearly three decades of his service career as part of the Kerala state government.

He was Principal Secretary, Information Technology Department, managing director of the Kerala State Electronics Development Corporation, and Secretary (Industries), among other posts.

During the early part of his career, he served as the district magistrate and Collector of Palakkad district.

Active after retirement

Kumar has not rested on his laurels after retirement from service, and has been in great demand as a mentor to startups in various domains.

He founded MGF Kavachh, a SEBI-approved venture capital fund, and raised a corpus fund of Rs 250 crore to support startups in the aerospace and deep-tech sectors.

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He is an advisor to the board of the US-India Strategic and Partnership Forum, and is on the board of Sify.

Kumar is a distinguished visiting professor at IIT, Kanpur, and a non-resident Senior Fellow at Carnegie India.

The new chairman of the UPSC has received several awards, including Electronics Leader of the Year in 2013, one of the Top 50 effective bureaucrats by Asia Post in 2019, and distinguished alumnus of IIT, Kanpur, among others.