New Delhi: In a major move, the central government Saturday cleared the empanelment of 27 IAS officers of the 1990 batch for holding secretary-level posts. Of them, 24 officers have been selected for secretary and secretary-level posts, while three have been cleared for posts equivalent to the level of secretaries.
The list approved by the Appointments Committee of the Cabinet (ACC) includes three each from Uttar Pradesh, Assam, Meghalaya and Kerala and one officer from the Gujarat cadre.
Two officers belong to the Punjab cadre while two more are from West Bengal. From the Union Territory cadre, there are two officers, while two are from Jharkhand and Odisha each. Cadres of Bihar, Karnataka, Maharashtra, Manipur, Madhya Pradesh and Rajasthan have an officer each as part of the list.
Many of the empanelled officers are already part of the Government of India bureaucracy in the rank of additional and special secretaries.
Top of the list is Pankaj Jain, a Meghalaya cadre officer, at present serving as additional secretary with the Department of Financial Services in the Union Ministry of Finance. Mukhmeet Singh Bhatia, a Jharkhand cadre IAS, was recently appointed the Central Provident Fund Commissioner, while Odisha cadre officer Arti Ahuja was the additional secretary in the health ministry. Aklesh Kumar Sharma, a Kerala-cadre IAS officer, is working as additional secretary in the cabinet secretariat.
The list also includes Sanjay Kumar from Bihar, posted as education secretary of the state
The others are Nitin R. Gokarn, currently serving as principal secretary, Public Works Department in UP government, K. Moses Chalai from Manipur, who is secretary to the prestigious North East Council under Ministry of DONER and Meeta R. Lochan, a Maharashtra cadre officer, at present member secretary in the National Commission for Women.
The officer from the Gujarat cadre is Kamal Dhyani, at present posted as the additional chief secretary with the state’s revenue department.
The others from the 1990 batch are Syedain Abbasi and Ravi Shankar Prasad from Meghalaya cadre, S.K.G. Rahate from Jharkhand, Raj Kumar Goyal from Jammu and Kashmir, Ganji Kamala V. Rao and Sarada G. Muraleedharan from Kerala, Atul Kumar Tiwari from Karnataka, Alka Upadhyaya from Madhya Pradesh, Manoj Ahuja from Odisha, Anirudh Tewari and Vijoy Kumar Singh from Punjab, Sanjay Malhotra from Rajasthan, Deepak Kumar and Archana Agarwal from UP, Arun Broka and Bhupinder Singh Bhalla from the UT cadre. The two officers from West Bengal are Vivek Bhardwaj and Vivek Kumar.
(Edited by Paramita Ghosh)
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