Thursday, July 03, 2014: The government of India has given additional charge of Department of Telecom (DoT) to DEITY Secretary Ram Sevak Sharma for a three month period or until further notification on the matter. The position had been left vacant afer MF Farooqui officially retired from his post on 30 June.
“The competent authority has approved the assignment of additional charge of the post of Secretary, DoT, to Ram Sewak Sharma, IAS (JH:78), secretary Department of Electronics and Information Technology (DEITY), for a period of three months with effect from 01-07-2014 or until further orders, whichever is earlier,” the appointment notice said. Sharma, a Jharkhand cadre IAS officer joined as secretary DEITY earlier on 1 May. Prior to this, Sharma was the director general and mission director of the unique identification authority of India (UIDAI) between August 2009 and March 2013. He was a key player in development of Aadhar card concept with former UIDAI chairman Nandan Nilekani.
Meanwhile, Farooqui had a 15 month tenure as DoT head. His tenure will be remembered for notifying key regulations of new licencing regime of Unified Licences and change in spectrum usage charges. Under his tenure, in-principal approval was given to initiatives like full mobile number portability, wi-fi services for rural India, new penalty norms for telecom operators etc.
