NEW DELHI: Govt Wednesday named half-a-dozen new secretaries, appointing Arunish Chawla to lead the revenue department, while Manipur chief secretary Vineet Joshi will head higher education and Rachna Shah has been put in-charge of department of personnel and training.
Textiles secretary Shah, a 1991-batch IAS officer from Kerala cadre, will be replaced by Neelam Shami Rao, her junior from Madhya Pradesh, who is currently secretary in National Commission for Minorities. Amit Agrawal, currently the CEO of the Unique Identification Authority of India, will move in as pharmaceuticals secretary, in place of Chawla, a 1992-batch officer.
The appointments committee of cabinet named Sanjay Sethi from Maharashtra as Rao’s replacement, while Neerja Sekhar, a Haryana-cadre IAS officer from the 1993 batch, was named DG, National Productivity Council.
Joshi’s appointment, a day after Ajay Bhalla was named the governor of strife-torn Manipur, was widely anticipated as he had worked in the education department as additional secretary and also led CBSE and the National Testing Agency.
Chawla’s appointment follows Sanjay Malhotra’s surprise selection as the Reserve Bank of India governor and completes the budget team.
Although the Bihar cadre officer has not served in revenue department at the Centre, he was joint secretary in the expenditure department, handling the crucial plan finance division which deals with all major govt schemes. Chawla, who holds a doctorate from the London School of Economics also spent two years as a senior economist in the International Monetary Fund apart from being the minister (economic) in the Indian Embassy in Washington.
With five weeks to go for the Union Budget, he has to hit the ground running to balance the demands of industry and also ensure that govt revenues remain strong.
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