P Bala Kiran, IAS, has joined as the new Director
of Kerala Tourism. He succeeds U V Jose IAS, who was appointed recently
as the District Collector of Kozhikode.
Prior to this he served as the Director of Kerala State IT
Mission, District Collector Kannur and Director of Panchayat Department.
Before joining IAS, he worked as Missile Scientist in DRDO, Hyderabad,
for four years and was selected for IPS (Punjab Cadre) in 2007. A 2008
batch Indian Administrative Service officer hailing from Hyderabad,
Kiran started his civil service career as Assistant Collector of
Kozhikode and then took over as Sub-Collector of Thiruvalla and
Kasaragod. He is an alumnus of IIT Madras and an M.Tech holder in
Computer Science and Engineering.
Kiran is a recipient of National Award for Best Electoral
Practices of Election Commission of India for the ‘Innovative Measures’
implemented in Kannur during the Assembly Elections in 2016 and National
Award for his ‘Barrier-Free Kannur’ project from Pranab Mukherjee,
President of India, for his contributions towards ensuring a
barrier-free environment in the district and thereby making it
accessible to the differently-abled sections of the society. He has also
won the ‘Best District Collector of Kerala’ Award in 2016 from Chief
Minister of Kerala for his outstanding work as District Collector of
Kannur.