Karnataka bureaucrat is UP CM’s pick to fight Covid-19 in Noida

Shrinivasa M | TNN | Updated: Apr 5, 2020, 09:29 IST

Suhas Lalinakere Yathiraj with his mother, wife Ritu, and two kids.

MYSURU: An IAS officer, hailing from the Old Mysore region, has been handpicked by Uttar Pradesh chief minister Yogi Adityanath to lead the fight against Covid-19 in the state’s border district of Noida, which has reported a surge in the number of infections in the recent past.
Suhas Lalinakere Yathiraj, 37, born in Hassan and raised in Mandya and Shivamogga, is a 2007-batch IAS officer, who has held various administrative positions in UP. An alumnus of the National Institute of Technology Karnataka in Dakshina Kannada, Lalinakere was serving as the special secretary in the Uttar Pradesh planning department before he was posted as district magistrate of Gautam Buddh Nagar, which is home to many multinational firms and, consequently, has witnessed en masse migration of labourers to their villages.
Suhas had his task cut out with the UP CM making it clear that he wants a complete lockdown enforced in Gautam Buddh Nagar. It was his sterling record in service that recommended Lalinakere, an ace badminton player to boot, for a position of such responsibility. Having served as the DM of Azamgarh, Allahabad and Sonabhadra among other places, Lalinakere’s services were recognised by the UP government, which conferred on him the Yash Bharti, the state’s highest civilian honour. His mother Jayashri CS, who lives in Shivamogga, said he had worked for an MNC in Bengaluru for two years.
The bureaucrat wasted no time in getting down to the job after he took up his posting in Noida. In around 72 hours, 14 additional rapid response teams were constituted to deal with medical emergencies. “We have arranged 300 additional beds for isolation and 1,000 more for quarantine for standby. The integrated control room has gone live, with call centre professionals being employed. As many as 30 calls can be handled simultaneously here,” he said.
“To keep the morale of healthcare personnel high, we are keeping them quarantined at five-star hotels, using funds provided by private firms under CSR initiative,” said Lalinakere. His wife Ritu Suhas is also a bureaucrat and the couple has two children.
“I was keen on participating in the Para Olympics this year. But I have decided to forgo my dream given the present situation in the country,” he said.