M Sivasankar

Sivasankar Nair, aka M. Sivasankar, was born on January 24, 1963, in Thiruvananthapuram, Kerala, India. He was a Kerala cadre retired Indian Administrative Services (IAS) officer from the 1995 batch. He did his B.Tech. in Instrumentation and Control Systems at the NSS College of Engineering, Palakkad, Kerala. Later, he completed his post-graduation in rural management at IRMA (the Institute of Rural Management Anand), Gujarat, India. After post-graduation in Rural management, he worked at the Reserve Bank of India (RBI). In the year 2000, he worked in the Communications and Information Technology department as an undersecretary and, after some time, was promoted to deputy secretary in the Civil Supplies department, serving the post till 2001. Later, he was promoted to directorship in the Civil Supplies, Food, and Public Distribution Department until 2002.

From 2002 to 2003, he worked as the joint secretary in the Department of Communications and Information Technology. In the Department of District Administration and Land Revenue Management, he was posted as District Collector in Malappuram. Sivasankar served the Public Instructions Department as deputy secretary in 2006, and then in 2008, he got promoted. In 2008, Sivasankar was appointed deputy secretary at the Department of Tourism and later progressed to the position of director, where he remained until 2011. He served as the director of the Non-conventional Energy and Rural Technology Department from 2010 to 2011. In 2011, he was secretary of the Public Works Department (PWD) and the Sports Department; in 2012, he was secretary of the General Education Department and the Tribal Welfare Department.

He was appointed joint secretary to the Kerala State Electricity Board and the Sports Department the same year. Later, he held the position of chairman of the Kerala State Electricity Board, where he remained until 2016. In 2016, he was appointed as an officer on Special Duty. He received a raise to the position of principal secretary to Chief Minister Pinarayi Vijayan in 2017. He became principal secretary at the Department of Information and Technology in 2007. Sivasankar petitioned the state government for Voluntary Retirement from Service (VRS) in April 2022. M. Sivasankar retired on January 31, 2023.