When the State Cabinet took the decision to appoint him as the new District Collector of Ernakulam, K. Mohammed Y. Safirulla was fully immersed in a high-level meeting on cyber security hosted by IIT Delhi.

Helming the Kerala State IT Mission (KSITM), an autonomous nodal IT implementation agency of the State government’s Department of Information Technology, for close to two-and-a-half-years, meetings and presentations had become a part of his life.

A 2010 Kerala cadre IAS officer from Salem, the high-profile and coveted job of heading the commercial and industrial hub of Kerala is his first assignment as a District Collector. During the year-long training, he served as the Assistant Collector of Palakkad followed by a one-and-a-half-year long stint as the Idukki Sub Collector before taking over as Director at KSITM.

Mr. Safirulla leaves behind a commendable body of work at KSITM. It was under him that a slew of initiatives were either rolled out or gathered traction. This includes e-office; e-district, which put various government services on fast track; e-procurement that helped bring about transparency in procurement; online transfer of registry; and cloud enablement at the State Data Centre.

His posting at KSITM was in tune with his educational background and pre-civil service job profile. With a Bachelor of Engineering, MBA and M.A. in Public Policy against his name, Mr. Safirulla had worked at Tata Consultancy Services for two years before joining IBM, where he spent three years.

K. Mohammed

Y. Safirulla, the new District Collector, has proved his mettle in

e-governance while heading the Kerala State IT Mission

K. Mohammed

Y. Safirulla, who will be the new District Collector, leaves behind a commendable body of work at