The significance of one of the largest secretary-level reshuffles by the Union government last week has not received the attention it deserved. On Good Friday, to be precise, the government named as many as 18 new secretaries to head its different departments. Normally, such appointments are a routine exercise, undertaken sporadically as and when the need arises. But take a closer look at last week’s decision, and you will get a sense of the government’s current thinking, which is a welcome change from the way such appointments were handled in the recent past.
To begin with, there appears to be a crackdown on the practice of secretaries holding dual charges for several months. In the recent past, there have been quite a few instances of one secretary looking after more than one department. In one stroke last week, four such dual charges were eliminated. Having the same person in charge of both the Departments of Economic Affairs and Revenue, or both Dipam and Public Enterprises is perhaps workable, given that these departments are part of the finance ministry. Nevertheless, this arrangement was harmful for both efficiency and governance.
Worse, there was no logic in asking Dipam Secretary Arunish Chawla to hold additional charge of the culture ministry, or in entrusting Consumer Affairs Secretary Nidhi Khare with the additional responsibility of heading the Ministry of New and Renewable Energy. It is a matter of relief that all these dual charges have been eliminated and none of these departments and ministries are now run by secretaries as an additional responsibility. A positive outcome of this exercise should be administrative efficiency and improved accountability.
Last week’s bureaucratic reshuffle also saw six significant transfers. The most intriguing was that of Expenditure Secretary Manoj Govil to the Cabinet Secretariat as secretary, coordination. Mr Govil, a 1991-batch officer, joined the finance ministry as expenditure secretary in August 2024. He is due to retire only in March 2029, and if he had remained in the finance ministry, he would have been a claimant to the cherished post of finance secretary after the retirement of the current incumbent, Ajay Seth, at the end of May 2025. Clearly, a lot of thought must have preceded the shift of Mr Govil to the Cabinet Secretariat.
No less significant is the transfer of Civil Aviation Secretary Vumlunmang Vualnam to fill the vacancy in the expenditure department as its secretary. A 1992-batch IAS officer, Mr Vualnam will have a fairly long stint of over three years before he will be due for superannuation. Importantly, the vacancy caused by Mr Vualnam’s shift to the finance ministry has already been filled, with Samir Sinha named as the new secretary for the civil aviation ministry. There are three other transfers involving the department of youth affairs, the Inter-State Council, and the directorate general of the India International Institute of Democracy. All these transfers indicate the execution of a clearly thought-out plan.
But more important than that is the way the government has taken steps to fill as many as eight secretarial vacancies arising out of superannuation. The position of labour secretary had fallen vacant at the end of last month and, though a little belated, Vandana Gurnani has now been shifted from the Cabinet Secretariat to take charge of the labour ministry. In addition, action on filling seven other secretarial posts has been taken, even though those retirements are scheduled over the next few months. Such advance planning provides stability to the bureaucratic leadership and it has obvious positive implications for economic governance — particularly when the advance appointments pertain to ministries that are in charge of the economy.
Note that Commerce Secretary Sunil Barthwal and India’s chief trade negotiator, Rajesh Agarwal, have been steering the country’s trade negotiations with the United States, the United Kingdom, and the European Commission. This responsibility has become critical in an era of heightened uncertainty over reciprocal tariffs threatened by US President Donald Trump.
But the government was also conscious that Mr Barthwal was due to retire at the end of September this year. Under normal circumstances, a decision to find a successor for Mr Barthwal would have been made some time in September. But in a welcome departure from that trend — and thanks perhaps to the mounting trade policy challenges ahead for India-— the government appointed Mr Agarwal as special secretary in the commerce ministry and decided that he would succeed Mr Barthwal upon his superannuation at the end of September 2025.
That decision will provide both stability and continuity at the top rung of India’s commerce ministry. Similarly, new secretaries for the ministries and departments of parliamentary affairs, food-processing industries, sports, skill development, social justice and economic affairs have been named, even though their current incumbents will be retiring only after about a month or two.
The implications of these bureaucratic changes are most impactful for the finance ministry. After these changes take effect, the finance ministry will have a completely new secretarial team. It now becomes clear why the government chose to retain V Anantha Nageswaran as the chief economic advisor for two more years, even though he was the preferred candidate to move to the Reserve Bank of India as deputy governor in charge of monetary policy. With a new economic affairs secretary in Anuradha Thakur (who comes from the corporate affairs ministry with a promotion), a new revenue secretary in Arvind Shrivastava (who comes from the Prime Minister’s Office also with a promotion), a new expenditure secretary in Mr Vualnam (who comes from the civil aviation ministry), a new public enterprises secretary in K Moses Chalai (who comes from the Inter-State Council), and a relatively new Dipam secretary in Dr Chawla (who joined the ministry early this year), Dr Nageswaran’s experience of having dealt with the affairs of the finance ministry for the last three years will be of immense value to the government.
This is in sharp contrast to what has been happening to the top secretarial team in North Block, headquarters of the finance ministry, since December 2024. Less than eight weeks before the presentation of the Budget for 2025-26, the revenue secretary was shifted suddenly to the Reserve Bank of India as its governor. A new revenue secretary was appointed to fill that vacancy, but about two weeks later, the newly appointed revenue secretary was swapped with the then Dipam secretary. And about a month after the Budget’s presentation, the revenue secretary, who also functioned as the finance secretary, was appointed as the chairman of the Securities and Exchange Board of India.
Against the backdrop of these frequent secretarial changes in North Block over the last few months, the government’s decision to appoint as many as four new secretaries in the finance ministry suggests a game plan for building a stable team at the helm. None of the newly appointed secretaries will retire before 2028, and two of them will superannuate only after April 2030.
Only one issue remains to be sorted out. When the reigning finance secretary, Mr Seth, retires at the end of May, there will be two strong contenders to succeed him as the finance secretary — Dr Chawla and Mr Vualnam. Both of them belong to the 1992 batch, but Dr Chawla is ranked way above Mr Vualnam in the list of successful candidates that year. Hopefully, that decision on the next finance secretary will be made by the time Mr Seth demits office.
AK Bhattacharya is the Editorial Director, Business Standard. He tweets @AshokAkaybee. Views are personal.