# Ajay Kumar (civil servant)

Ajay Kumar ( born 2 October 1962) is the former Defence Secretary of India. He is a retired Indian Administrative Service officer from the 1985 batch. Kumar is an alumnus of IIT Kanpur and the University of Minnesota.
Kumar is the longest-serving secretary in the Ministry of defence, having also held the position of Secretary in the Department of Defence Production. Kumar held positions, including additional secretary in the Ministry of Electronics and Information Technology and director general of the National Informatics Centre. He was part of the team that implemented Digital India Initiatives in 2014 which included Unified Payments Interface, Aadhaar, MyGov.in, Government e Marketplace, and Jeevan Pramaan.
Kumar's work involved setting up the defence startup ecosystem through the Innovations for Defence Excellence (iDEX) program from 2017 to 2022 and advancing the Digital India initiatives. Between 2020 and 2021, he worked on policy matters to support startups in the AI, drone, and space industries, and from 2018 to 2022, he worked on enhancing the performance of Defence Public Sector Undertakings (PSUs). During his tenure, the defence industry ecosystem underwent significant changes, particularly under the Atmanirbhar Bharat initiative.
As a former Defence Secretary, Kumar worked in the corporatization of the Ordnance Factories Board, a 200-year-old institution employing 80,000 people.

## Post Retirement Endeavors

Kumar, a seasoned mentor to startups across various domains, founded MGF-Kavachh and raised a corpus of ₹250 crores. The fund is a SEBI-approved venture capital fund and dedicated to supporting startups focused on indigenizing critical technologies and domains in aerospace, and deep tech sectors.
Kumar is appointed as an advisor to the board of the US-India Strategic and Partnership Forum (USISPF). He is Director on Board at Sify. He is distinguished visiting Professor at IIT Kanpur with Department of Management Sciences and with Department of Economic Sciences. Dr. Ajay is also non-resident Senior Fellow at Carnegie India.
He is an active writer for Indian national dailies and maintains a monthly column in Business Standard titled "Off the Grid."

## Education

Kumar has a Bachelor of Technology in electrical engineering from the Indian Institute of Technology Kanpur, has a master's degree in development economics from the University of Minnesota, and has a PhD degree in business administration from the Carlson School of Management at the University of Minnesota.
Kumar was awarded two separate fellowships by the University of Minnesota and recognized as the distinguished alumnus by the IIT Kanpurfor his professional excellence and nation-building efforts

## Career

Kumar has served in various posts in both the Government of India and the Government of Kerala, such as Principal Secretary (Information Technology), managing director of the Kerala State Electronics Development Corporation, Secretary (Industries), managing director of the Kerala State Co-operative Agricultural and Rural Development Bank, general manager in the Kerala State Industrial Development Corporation and as the district magistrate and collector of the Palghat (now Palakkad) district in the Kerala government; and as the Defence Production Secretary, additional secretary in the Ministry of Electronics and Information Technology, joint secretary in the Department of Information Technology of the now-erstwhile Ministry of Communications and Information Technology, director in the Department of Biotechnology of the Ministry of Science and Technology and as a deputy secretary in the Department of Home of the Ministry of Home Affairs in the Indian government.
Ajay kumar spent three decade of his service with the Kerala state government where he headed three different departments.
Kumar also served as a private secretary to a minister in the Ministry of Non-Conventional Energy Sources (now Ministry of New and Renewable Energy).

### Principal Secretary

He was Principal Secretary to Government of Kerala, Information Technology Department from October 2007 to December 2010.

### Joint Secretary

Kumar held the post of Joint Secretary, Ministry of Electronics and Information Technology and additional charge of Director General at National Informatics Centre from 2010 to 2014.

### Additional Secretary

He was Additional Secretary, Ministry of Electronics and Information Technology during 2015 - 2019

### Defence Production Secretary

Kumar was appointed as the Defence Production Secretary by the prime minister-headed Appointments Committee of the Cabinet in November 2017, he assumed office on 1 December 2017. He served as Defence Production Secretary till 23 August 2019 and was succeeded by Subhash Chandra, an IAS officer of Karnataka cadre (1986 batch).

### Defence Secretary

Kumar was appointed as Union Defence Secretary on 21 August 2019, and he assumed office on 23 August 2019 when Sanjay Mitra retired and served the office till 31 October 2022. Kumar travelled to Paris along with Raksha Mantri Rajnath Singh to take delivery of first Rafale fighter jet. On 4 June 2020, Kumar tested positive for COVID-19.

### Secretary, Department of Defence Production

Defence Secretary Ajay Kumar was assigned additional charge of Secretary, Department of Defence Production on 30th Nov 2021 and served the office till 31 October 2022.

## Professional work

Dr Ajay Kumar, the Defence Secretary, commissioned the Indian Coast Guard Ship (ICGS) Saksham, the fifth of the 105-metre Offshore Patrol Vessels (OPVs) class. ICGS Saksham's commissioning has enhanced the ability of the ICG to fulfill the diverse maritime tasks.
In March 2022, he asserted that defence imports have been decreasing continuously, with the focus been given on emerging defence technologies like cyberspace and underwater warfare and enhancing R&D investments aimed at optimizing defence operations and augmenting military efficiency.
On 20 April 2022, Kumar launched INS Vagsheer, the sixth Scorpene-class submarine under Project-75, at Mazagon Dock in Mumbai.

## Honours and awards

He received distinguished Alumni award from Indian Institute of Technology Kanpur in 2019 for the entrepreneurship excellence work. Kumar is credited for the creation of an Electronics Development Fund, which focuses on developing technology start-ups in defence sector.
Ajay Kumar was named one of the top-50 effective bureaucrats in the year 2019 in a survey conducted by Asia Post for adhering to the cardinal principles of civil service that is professionalism, anonymity, integrity and neutrality.
* 2013 - EFY - Electronics Leader of Year
* 2019 - Awarded Honorary Doctorate by Amity University, Noida
* 2019 - Top 50 effective bureaucrats by Asia Post
* 2019 - Distinguished Alumni, IIT Kanpur
* 2021 - Fellow of Indian National Academy of Engineering in 2021