Senior IAS officer Rashmi V Mahesh has been appointed as the nominee to the BMS Educational Trust (BMSET) by the Karnataka state government. An IAS officer of 1996 batch, she is currently posted as Principal Secretary, Revenue Department (Disaster Management, Bhoomi and UPOR). Earlier, she had served as Principal Secretary, Higher Education Department.
Usually, the officer serving as the principal secretary of the Higher Education Department or Commissioner for Collegiate/Technical Education gets nominated by the government. However, this time the state government has chosen Ms. Mahesh. This move came after the allegations of misappropriation in BMSET.
Last year in September, former chief minister H D Kumaraswamy had raised allegations of irregularities at the BMSET in the Assembly. He had accused the then Higher Education Minister Dr C N Ashwath Narayan of clearing a file allowing billionaire Dayananda Pai’s appointment as life trustee of BMSET. Recently, Chief Minister Siddaramaiah called a meeting with Higher Education Minister Dr M C Sudhakar where it was decided to constitute a committee headed by an IAS officer to inquire into the affairs of the BMSET, which runs BMS institutions in Bengaluru.
