Senior IAS Officer And VK Pandian’s Wife Sujata Rout Karthikeyan Takes Voluntary Retirement
An IAS officer of 2000 batch, Sujata Rout Karthikeyan took several pioneering initiatives in her career. She was serving as the special secretary in Odisha’s finance department.
Senior Odisha cadre IAS officer Sujata Rout Karthikeyan, wife of Naveen Patnaik’s former close aide V K Pandian, has taken voluntary retirement (VRS) from government service, official sources said on Saturday.
The Central Government has approved her request of voluntary retirement and asked the Odisha government to issue the necessary notification. The approval of Karthikeyan’s request was informed to Odisha Chief Secretary Manoj Ahuja by Under Secretary in the Ministry of Personnel, Public Grievance and Pensions, Bhupinder Pal Singh through a letter, news agency PTI reported.
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"… It is to convey that Central Government has approved the request of Voluntary Retirement of Smt. Sujata R Karthikeyan, IAS (RR-2000) from IAS with effect from 13.03.2025, in relaxation of three months’ mandatory notice period under Rule 16 (2A) of AIS (DCRB) Rules, 1958. Further, Govt, of Odisha is requested to issue necessary ’notification’ in this regard," the letter read.
Her bureaucrat-turned-politician husband, V K Pandian, had also taken voluntary retirement in October 2023 and joined the Biju Janata Dal (BJD) headed by former Odisha CM Naveen Patnaik. Pandian, however, quit active politics in the wake of the BJD’s defeat in the assembly polls last year, ending the regional party’s 24-year rule.
Who Is Sujata Rout Karthikeyan?
An IAS officer of 2000 batch, Sujata Rout Karthikeyan took several pioneering initiatives in her career. She was serving as the special secretary in Odisha’s finance department.
She had been instrumental in the introduction of Mamata Yojana, a cash transfer initiative for pregnant women and lactating mothers, and Mission Shakti, which provides interest-free loans to women self-help groups engaged in small-scale industries.
Mamata Yojana addressed the nutritional needs of pregnant women and lactating mothers and followed a self-declaration format for claiming benefits, reducing paperwork and evading red-tapism.
She brought around 70 lakh women under the purview of the Mission Shakti initiative and credit linkages to women-run SHGs increased from Rs 500 to Rs 15,000 crore in seven years.
She also served in the Naxal-affected Sundergarh district and started the cycle scheme for high school students through bank sponsorship. Karthikeyan is also credited with the introduction of eggs in the mid-day meals in all government schools of the district in 2006. It was later scaled up and implemented across the state.
Hailing from coastal Odisha’s Kendrapara district, Karthikeyan was also fondly called the "football collector" in Sundergarh for distributing footballs among youngsters in remote villages along the inter-state boundaries with Jharkhand and Chhattisgarh.
She also distributed hockey equipment, encouraging young boys and girls to take up sports and stay away from Naxal activities or drugs.
Sujata was the first woman collector of Cuttack district and then joined as Director Social Welfare in state government.
In May 2024, the Election Commission had ordered Karthikeyan’s transfer to a department where she would not deal with the public following allegations of misuse of her office. She was then serving as the commissioner-cum-secretary, Department of Mission Shakti.
Before taking retirement, Karthikeyan went on a six-month leave after the BJD lost the elections in 2024. She was granted leave till November 26 last year, but her application for extension was rejected by the state’s BJP government.
(With inputs from agencies)
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