New Delhi: In the second big bureaucratic reshuffle in the last one month, the Modi government Tuesday made several key appointments to the UPSC, CBSE, ASI, among other institutions.
Special Secretary in the Health Ministry Sanjeeva Kumar, who was expected to become the secretary after incumbent Preeti Sudan’s retirement, was transferred out of the ministry, according to an order of the Appointments Committee of the Cabinet (ACC), which is headed by Prime Minister Narendra Modi.
Kumar, a 1986-batch IAS officer of the Assam-Meghalaya cadre, has now been appointed as the secretary, Department of Border Management in the Ministry of Home Affairs (MHA).
This comes after Rajesh Bhushan, an IAS officer of the 1987-batch of Bihar cadre, was appointed as the Officer of Special Duty (OSD) in the health ministry.
Bhushan, who is now expected to become the secretary of the ministry, is Kumar’s junior — thus necessitating Kumar’s transfer to another ministry as secretary.
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UPSC’s new secretary
In another important appointment to the health ministry, Aarti Ahuja, a 1990-batch officer of the Odisha cadre, has been appointed as additional secretary to the ministry.
The government has also appointed Vasudha Mishra of the Telangana cadre as the new UPSC secretary after Rakesh Gupta retired from the post earlier this year.
The Archaeological Survey of India (ASI) also has a new director general (DG), with the government appointing V. Vidyavathi of the 1991-batch of the Karnataka cadre as the new DG.
K. Srinivas, a 1989 Gujarat-cadre officer, has been appointed as the new Establishment Officer for the Department of Personnel and Training (DoPT).
New chairpersons for the Central Board of Secondary Education (CBSE) and the Central Pollution Control Board (CPCB) — Manoj Ahuja of the Odisha cadre and Shiv Das Meena of the Tamil Nadu cadre, respectively — were also appointed.
A total of 19 senior officers were transferred as part of the bureaucratic rejig.
On 26 April, as many as 23 senior IAS officers were appointed as secretaries in different central government departments as part of a reshuffle, in which the PM-led ACC gave a three-month extension to Sudan.
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