Government appoints Abhay Karandikar as Department of Science & Technology Secretary – ETTelecom

NEW DELHI: The Appointments Committee of the Cabinet (ACC) has approved the appointment of Abhay Karandikar, Director, Indian Institute of Technology, Kanpur, to the post of Secretary, Department of Science & Technology.

“The Appointments Committee of the Cabinet has approved the appointment of Prof. Abhay Karandikar, Director, Indian Institute of Technology, Kanpur to the post of Secretary, Department of Science & Technology (DST) from the date of assumption of charge of the post till the date of his attaining the age of 60 years or until further orders, whichever is earlier,” the ACC said in an official notification Saturday.

He will take over from Rajesh S Gokhale, who assumed additional charge in July this year, over his role as Secretary of the Department of Biotechnology, after S Chandrasekhar quit as the Secretary of the science & technology department on “personal grounds” six months before the end of his tenure.

The Department of Science & Technology separately said on social media platform X (formerly Twitter) that Karandikar, a “wireless communication expert”, developed the concept of a “frugal 5G network” to enable affordable rural broadband connectivity, and contributed to telecom policy, and regulations that were included in national-level telecom policies.

He also led a national effort to set up India’s telecom standards development body – the Telecom Standards Development Society of India (TSDSI). Karandikar had served as its founding member and chairman.

Notably, the TSDSI is now a part of the 3rd Generation Partnership Project (3GPP), and is a member of the Global Standards Collaboration.

The IIT Kanpur Director was also a Member (part-time) of the Telecom Regulatory Authority of India (TRAI) from January 2017 to January 2020.

The senior official is also a member of the Technology Innovation Group on 6G and chairs the 6G Spectrum Task Force set up by the Department of Telecommunications.

“We would like to be the leader in the 6G technology development. India had missed the 4G bus, then we started developing 5G products. There was a pan-IIT testbed project… academia has a great role to play (in 6G development) both in terms of advanced research leading to 6G standardisation as well as developing some technology components of 6G,” Karandikar had told ETTelecom on the sidelines of an event by the publication in April this year.

Earlier, he had also chaired the 5G Spectrum Policy Task Force.