Rajaraman, an Indian Administrative Service officer of 1989 batch, has been named as the new Secretary of the Ministry of Communications.

Rajaraman will succeed Anshu Prakash who will retire as a civil servant after a glorious career at the end of this month.

The new Department of Telecoms (DoT) secretary is presently serving as Additional Secretary in the  Department of Economic
Affairs in the Ministry of Finance.

The federal government brought Rajaraman to the Comms Ministry as part of a major top-level bureaucratic reshuffle.
Economic Times  said that Rajaraman’s new assignment comes just a week after the government announced wide ranging reforms in the telecom sector, including announcing steps to convert government’s dues to telcos as equity over time in a bid to ensure a three-private player telecom market.

Some time back, India’s federal government approved a relief package for the financially beleaguered telecom sector that includes a four-year moratorium on payment of statutory dues by telecom companies as well as allowing 100 per cent foreign investment through the automatic route.

The package could come as a big relief for British telecom giant Vodafone’s Indian unit, which operates under the brand name VodafoneIdea, in the face of falling subscribers and revenues on one hand and a huge standing payout to the government in terms of dues.

Briefing reporters on the decisions taken by the Union Cabinet, Telecom Minister Ashwini Vaishnav had said nine structural reforms for the telecom sector were approved by the Cabinet, according to a PTI report.