Subrahmanyam Vijay Kumar

S Vijay Kumar
Born	(1953-09-30) 30 September 1953 New Delhi, India
Nationality	Indian
Occupation	Policy Analyst

S Vijay Kumar aka Subrahmanyam Vijay Kumar (born 30 September 1953) is a member of the IAS or Indian Administrative Service, and till recently was Secretary of India's Rural Development Ministry. From 2008 to 2011 he was in the Ministry of Mines, as Additional Secretary and then as the Secretary of the Ministry. In that role he was responsible for drafting the new mining legislation for the country to replace the outdated legislation of 1957 vintage.

Early life and background

S Vijay Kumar was born in New Delhi, India on 30 September 1953. He is the son of prominent Indian strategic affairs analyst, commentator, and civil servant and Convener of the National Security Advisery Board K Subrahmanyam. S Vijay Kumar is also the brother of historian Dr Sanjay Subrahmanyam and of India’s Ambassador to the United States of America, Dr S Jaishankar. He is a graduate of St Stephen’s College at the University of Delhi, and has a Master’s degree in mathematics.

Career

Joining the elite Indian Administrative Service in 1976, S Vijay Kumar served his initial years in the Himalayan province of Himachal Pradesh and held important positions as sub divisional Magistrate, Arki (in Solan District) and District Magistrate in Mandi and in Kullu Districts. During 1983-85, he was also the President of the Manali Municipality, and during his tenure, he is credited with introducing modern town planning to Manali enabling it to come on the international tourist map.

He was deputed to the Government of India from 1986 to 1991, as Director in the National Wastelands Development Mission in the Ministry of Environment & Forest (now a separate Department of Land Resources), when the Mission was formed at the behest of Indian Prime Minister Rajiv Gandhi in 1985.

Divisional Commissioner, Shimla

S Vijay Kumar came back to the Provincial Government from 1991 to 1996, during which period he remained Secretary (Personnel) to the State Government, responsible for devising and implementing HR strategies. In 1996 he was appointed to the post of Divisional Commissioner of Shimla and made responsible for the general administration of four of the State's Districts comprising Shimla Division, namely, Shimla, Kinnaur, Solan and Sirmour. He oversaw the relief and rescue efforts in Shimla and Kinnaur Districts in the wake of the floods on 11 August 1997 in the Satluj river and its tributary, the Andhra river.^[1]

Joint Secretary Rajya Sabha

After Mr Krishan Kant was elected Vice President of India, S Vijay Kumar joined Vice President of India and Chairman Krishan Kant’s Secretariat as Joint Secretary of the Upper House of the Indian Parliament, the Rajya Sabha, from 1998 to 2002. In addition to the normal work of management of the agenda of the House, legislation, Committees of Assurances, Petitions, Subordinate Legislation etc, S Vijay Kumar developed computerised systems for the Rajya Sabha with Internet publication for the first time, of the Parliament questions and answers and other debates. He got C-DAC to develop a domain-based machine translation software called MANTRA^[2] to translate Rajya Sabha papers from English to the National language Hindi, the only working application of its kind within the Government at that time. He was also responsible for the commencement of the live webcast of proceedings for the first time, and the facility was inaugurated by Chairman Krishan Kant in 2001. In his capacity of Joint Secretary Rajya Sabha, he was also the Assistant Returning Officer in 2002 for the election of the President of India, when A P J Abdul Kalam was elected to the office.

Executing the Prime Minister's rural roads programme

Between 2002 and 2005, S Vijay Kumar was appointed Director-General, National Rural Roads Development Agency (NRRDA) and ex-officio, Joint Secretary Ministry of Rural Development, and tasked with conceptualising and implementing the newly launched ambitious Prime Minister’s Rural Roads programme (called PMGSY, or the Pradhan Mantri Gram Sadak Yojana) in the Ministry of Rural Development, one of the key initiatives, along with the Golden Quadrilateral of National Highways, of Prime Minister Atal Bihari Vajpayee’s NDA Government. The programme set technical and management and quality assurance benchmarks which remain the gold standard for Central Programmes even today. The entire programme was managed using a comprehensive Operations Manual through web based applications. The technical standards quality assurance systems with a three–tier independent quality monitoring system, are now the norm for many other central programmes.

Principal Secretary to the Government of Himachal Pradesh

On his return from deputation, S Vijay Kumar was appointed as the Principal Secretary of the Home Department of the Government of Himachal Pradesh, responsible for policing and law and order, prosecution and prison administration for the Province. During the period 2005 to 2008, S Vijay Kumar oversaw deep reforms in the policing and prosecution systems. He draughted the Himachal Pradesh Police Act, which was approved and brought into force in 2007. The Act was based on the recommendations of the National Police Commission^[3] and the Supreme Court judgement in the Prakash Singh case. He also strengthened the prosecution machinery based on the Malimath Committee recommendations, as a result of which conviction rates more than doubled, from about 17% for IPC crimes, to nearly 40%.

India’s Mining Secretary 2009-2011

In 2008, S Vijay Kumar was brought to the Central Government to head a High Powered Committee set up at the instance of Prime Minister Manmohan Singh to restructure and revamp India’s respected but obsolete Geological Survey organisation, so as to enable it to meet the challenges expected from the forthcoming announcement of the National Mineral Policy aimed at incentivising Foreign Direct Investment in exploration and mining. As Additional Secretary and then Secretary of the Ministry of Mines^[4]^[5]^[6] of the Ministry from 2008 to end 2011, S Vijay Kumar oversaw the restructuring of the Geological Survey of India (GSI) into a modern survey organisation, and started ambitious programmes of geochemical, geomorphological and aero geophysical surveys of the country. He also draughted the new overarching legislation for the sector, the Mines and Minerals (Development & Regulation) Bill 2011,^[7] and got it cleared through the Group of Ministers headed by Mr Pranab Mukherjee, then the Finance Minister. The Bill was approved by the Union Cabinet on 30 September 2011, and was introduced in Parliament in the Winter Session of the Lok Sabha in November 2011. Vijay Kumar also chaired the Working Group constituted by the Planning Commission to draw up the strategy for the mineral sector in the 12th Plan, and gave a detailed 12th Plan Working Group Report on behalf of the Working Group in November 2011. Vijay Kumar extensively engaged with policy makers and the media in India and abroad^[8] to help improve the image of Indian mining and of India as an attractive mining investment destination.^[9]^[10]^[11]^[12]^[13]^[14]^[15]^[16]^[17]^[18]^[19]

India’s Rural Development Secretary 2012-2013

In 2012 , S Vijay Kumar was called back by the Central Government to the Ministry of Rural Development as the Secretary of the Ministry^[20]^[21] to head not only the PMGSY programme, but also another flagship programme of the UPA Government, the Mahatma Gandhi National Rural Employment Guarantee Scheme (popularly known as NREGA), which was strongly backed by the National Advisery Council of the UPA Government, chaired by Sonia Gandhi. Many of the standards set for the PMGSY were replicated in the MGNREGS.^[22]^[23] Vijay Kumar also helped rewite many of the Schemes of the Ministry, including the Indira Aawaas Yojana(IAY), the Aajeevika Skills Program and the Prime Ministers Rural Development Fellowship (PMRDF) Programme. He also drew up the Guidelines for the follow-on scheme to PMGSY, called predictably, PMGSY-II.

Distinguished Fellow in The Energy and Resources Institute (TERI)

After taking retirement from the IAS in September 2013, S, Vijay Kumar joined The Energy and Resources Institute (TERI),^[24] a not-for-profit NGO in New Delhi, in November 2013 as Distinguished Fellow for the area of natural resource management including water,^[25] land,^[26]^[27] forests and minerals.^[28] He continues with his writings on public policy^[29] and frequently appears at public forums to advise on policy matters.^[30]^[31]^[32]^[33]^[34]^[35] TERI is widely respected in India and abroad for the wide range of its scientific activities, covering sustainable development, climate change, and energy and resource use efficiency etc.