Ajay Prakash Sawhney (born 4 February 1962) is a 1984 batch

Indian Administrative Service The Indian Administrative Service (IAS) is the administrative arm of the All India Services of Government of India. Considered the premier civil service of India, the IAS is one of the three arms of the All India Services along with the India ...

(IAS) officer of Andhra Pradesh cadre. He has served as the

Secretary to the Government of India Secretary to the Government of India, often abbreviated as Secretary, GoI, or simply as Secretary, is a post and a rank under the Central Staffing Scheme of the Government of India. The authority for the creation of this post solely rests with ...

, at the Ministry of Electronics and Information Technology.

Education

Sawhney holds a degree in

mechanical engineering Mechanical engineering is the study of physical machines that may involve force and movement. It is an engineering branch that combines engineering physics and mathematics principles with materials science, to design, analyze, manufacture, ...

and is also an alumnus of IIT Delhi.

Career

Sawhney has served in various key positions for both the

Government of India The Government of India ( ISO: ; often abbreviated as GoI), known as the Union Government or Central Government but often simply as the Centre, is the national government of the Republic of India, a federal democracy located in South Asia, ...

and the governments of his cadre. Between 1999-2005, as Special officer for

IIIT Hyderabad IIIT is an initialism that may refer to: * Indian Institutes of Information Technology, a group of institutes of higher education in India * Indraprastha Institute of Information Technology, Delhi, an autonomous university in Delhi, India * Intern ...

and Secretary IT for the state government, Ajay Prakash Sawhney came to the limelight through his success in shaping the conceptual model and development of IIIT Hyderabad. As secretary, IT, at Department of Information Technology in the Andhra Pradesh State Government, he was also credited for roping in large amounts of investment from firms such as Microsoft, Wipro, TCS leading up to an era of unprecedented growth in the IT infrastructure of Hyderabad. During the period 2010 to 2012, when Ajay was appointed the CEO of the National e-Governance Division, he laid the initial groundwork for building the

Aadhaar Aadhaar ( hi, आधार, ādhār, lit=base, foundation, bn, আধার) is a 12-digit unique identity number that can be obtained voluntarily by the citizens of India and resident foreign nationals who have spent over 182 days in twelve ...

card system and also integrating digital payments in government portals and schemes such as

BHIM BHIM (Bharat Interface for Money) is an Indian mobile payment app developed by the National Payments Corporation of India (NPCI), based on the Unified Payments Interface (UPI). Launched on 30 December 2016, it is intended to facilitate e-pay ...

and UPI. He was on also given the additional charge of the post of Secretary, Department of Telecommunications till 14 October 2018.

Secretary -IT

Ajay Sawhney was appointed as the

Ministry of Electronics and Information Technology The Ministry of Electronics and Information Technology (MeitY) is an executive agency of the Union Government of the Republic of India. It was carved out of the Ministry of Communications and Information Technology on 19 July 2016 as a standalo ...

. His work on National Policy on electronics was a starting stone for Electronics reforms in this sector. He has been vocal about right usage of

social media Social media are interactive media technologies that facilitate the creation and sharing of information, ideas, interests, and other forms of expression through virtual communities and networks. While challenges to the definition of ''social me ...

channels in

India India, officially the Republic of India ( Hindi: ), is a country in South Asia. It is the seventh-largest country by area, the second-most populous country, and the most populous democracy in the world. Bounded by the Indian Ocean on the ...

. His initial work in 2010-2012 as the CEO of the national e-governance programme had served as the starting point for formulation of the Aadhar card system and digital payments in government portals and schemes. As

, he has formulated policies that have led to exponential growth in digital payments in India. He has widely been credited for playing a major role in easing policy and encouraging the digital India initiative and the make in India initiative through policy reform, this has helped transform India into an electronics manufacturing hub for the largest mobile and consumer electronics companies of the world.

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Sawhney, Ajay Prakash 1962 births Living people Indian Administrative Service officers Indian government officials People from Delhi