New Delhi: Ravneet Kaur, a 1988-batch Punjab-cadre IAS officer, has been appointed the new chairperson of the Competition Commission of India (CCI) for a period of five years. Kaur is the first woman to head the country’s chief national competition regulator, which has been operating without a full-time chairperson since October last year.
Her appointment comes at a time when the CCI is in the process of conducting inquiries against tech giants like Amazon, Google, Facebook, among others, for alleged anti-competitive practices.
The Appointments Committee of the Cabinet (ACC) has chosen Kaur as CCI chairperson for a period of five years from the date of taking charge, or till the age of 65 years, or until further orders, said the official government order dated 15 May 2023.
Kaur (60) is the second woman to serve in an ‘economic regulator’ role after Madhabi Puri Buch, who was appointed chairperson of the market regulator Securities and Exchange Board of India (SEBI) last year.
With over two decades of experience in government, Kaur has held several key positions including that of chairman of India Tourism Development Corporation (2017-2019), joint secretary in the Department of Industrial Policy and Promotion (2015-2017).
Before she was appointed CCI chairperson, Kaur was serving as special chief secretary (apex scale) in the Punjab government’s agriculture and cooperation departments in Chandigarh.
Hailing from Chandigarh, Kaur’s first stint in the civil services was in the capacity of a sub-divisional magistrate (SDM) in Punjab’s Rajpura in 1990.
She has a Master’s degree in economics and public economic management from Panjab University, and is a recipient of the 1991 Census Silver Medal, awarded to her for her government service. In 2019, she was also felicitated by the Institute of South Asian Women (ISAW) with its Women Achievers Award.
According to her executive record sheet, Kaur has trained in international negotiations at the Indian Institute of Foreign Trade, and in infrastructure development and financing at the Indian Institute of Management, Ahmedabad.
The CCI had been without a full-time chairperson since Ashok Kumar Gupta demitted office in October 2022. Sangeeta Verma, a CCI member, had been serving as the acting chairperson since.
(Edited by Amrtansh Arora)
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