The Appointments Committee of the Cabinet has approved the appointment of Prof Abhay Karandikar, Director, Indian Institute of Technology, Kanpur (IIT-K) to the post of Secretary, Department of Science & Technology (DST).

Karandikar will take over from Rajesh S Gokhale, Secretary, Department of Biotechnology (DBT), who assumed additional charge as Secretary, DST in July 2023, after Dr S Chandrashekhar decided to move back to the Indian Institute of Chemical Technology (IICT), Hyderabad, much before the end of his tenure.

Karandikar has held a number of positions including Dean and Institute chair professor in the Department of Electrical Engineering at the Indian Institute of Technology, Bombay; Centre for Development of Advanced Computing and Telecommunications Standards Development Society, India (TSDSI).

He was one of the founding members of TSDSI and appointed as its first Vice Chairman from 2014 to 2016, and then was appointed its Chairman from 2016 to 2018. He was Chairman of the committee to give recommendations to Government of India on size, scope and quantum of spectrum for experimental spectrum license for 5G.

Karandikar has also been the Chairman of the committee setup by the Ministry of Defence in 2018 for preparing a Roadmap for the development of Indigenous Software Defined Radio Ecosystem. He is the Chairman of Defence Standards Development Authority (SDA), set up by Ministry of Defence based on the recommendations of the committee.