Dr. D. S. Ravindran (PhD), aged 61 years, is a Retd. IFS (Indian Forest Service 1986 Batch) and the former Principal Secretary to the Government Khajane-2, Finance Department, Government of Karnataka with over 34 years of experience in the areas of administration, civil service, research, financial planning, Information Technology, Public Policy Planning & Implementation Process, Renewable Energy etc.

He is a Post Graduate in Agriculture and has pursued Post Graduate Programme in Public Policy & Management (IIMB). He holds PhD in Forest Economics (from University of Wales) and in most of these qualifications earned by him, he stood the first rank.

Over his illustrious career he held various key posts in the Government such as (1) Principal Secretary to the Government, Khajane-2, Finance Department, Government of Karnataka; (2) Chief Executive Officer, Centre for e-Governance, Government of Karnataka, Bangalore; (3) Associate Professor, Indian Institute of Forest Management, Bhopal; (4) Project Officer (Forestry), Biomass Energy for Rural India Project, UNDP-GEF Project, Bangalore; and (5) Conservator of Forests, Kodagu Circle (Karnataka State).

During his tenure as a Chief Executive Officer, Centre for e-Governance, Bangalore he was responsible for conceptualization and implementation of key e-Governance Programmes of Govt. of Karnataka. He was instrumental in the implementation of Data Centre, Networks, AADHAAR, Bangalore One and Karnataka One Citizen Delivery Centres, e-Procurement and HRMS Enterprise Applications thus transforming the way the Government interacts with the citizens. More than 20 projects were implemented during his tenure, to e-enable the Government of Karnataka to take up smooth G2G, G2B, G2C applications. He implemented and handled AADHAAR in the Karnataka State as the Registrar leading to 3.4 crore enrolments which is more than 50% of the Karnataka State Populace. He developed the concept of “The Karnataka Resident Data Hub”, a platform to link various services of the Government to AADHAAR to facilitate better delivery of services. This model was adopted by the UIDAI for national level scaling. Also, he implemented an innovative Document Management System (DMS) for AADHAAR enrolments. He has received several National Awards for this work. The Karnataka State emerged as number one in the “e-Governance Readiness Index” amongst all the States of India.

During his position held as Principal Secretary to Government of Karnataka, Khajane-2, Finance Department he was responsible for the implementation of a transformative electronic platform for carrying out all the financial transactions of the Government. Large-scale Government Process Engineering was taken up in this project and more than 75000 users were brought on this platform creating a unified Integrated Financial Management System for the Government of Karnataka besides modernizing the State Treasuries System. He also coordinated with different stakeholders such as E-Kuber, 20 Banks, NSDL, Postal Systems, NPCI, Aggregators etc. that lead to more than 330 integrations to enable implementation of real-time and electronic payment and remittance systems and also taking care of proper reconciliation system.

Currently, he is the Consulting Advisor to Treasuries on Khajane-2 since May 2020 advising the Government of Karnataka, Treasuries Department on the Technical and Operational Management of the Integrated Financial Management System, providing both technical and policy inputs for management of the Financial Transactions of entire Government of Karnataka.

He has bagged several awards for his excellence in performance and initiatives. Some of them being (1) National Award for best e-Governance Project for e-Procurement Project, Karnataka, from Government of India (2012); (2) National Web Ratna Award (Silver) for the Best Portal for citizen services delivery for Bangalore One, from Government of India (2011); (3) Future E-Gov Award at International Conference at Kuala Lumpur for the e-Procurement Project (2011); (4) Most Innovative Document Management System, from Unique Identification Authority of India(2011); (5) CSI-Nihilent award for the HRMS Project of Government of Karnataka (2010); (6) Received Commonwealth Scholarship of UK, a competitive scholarship for Doctoral Studies; (7) Recipient Gold Medal for being Topper for the PGPPM, IIM, Bangalore (2007); and (8) Recipient of 6 Medals, including the Curie Medal for the Topper for securing the I Rank in M.Sc.(Forestry) at IGNFA.

Recipient of 4 Medals for overall best performance for IFS Officers at Lal Bahadur Shastri National Academy of Administration, Mussorie.