A couple of days after Prime Minister Narendra Modi put non-performing babus on notice, the Government on Friday carried out a bureaucratic reshuffle involving key departments like Telecom, Agriculture, and Information Technology, which will now have new Secretaries.
Among the administrative reshuffle in ten departments, the most noticeable was the transfer of Telecom Secretary Rakesh Garg to the Minority Affairs department.
JS Deepak, Secretary of Department of Electronics and Information Technology, is the new Telecom Secretary. Prime Minister Narendra Modi
had himself twice expressed his displeasure over the
problem of unabated call drops during his high-level meetings with the Telecom Department. The unresolved issue seemed to be one of the main reasons for Garg’s shunting out, sources said.
New Telecom Secretary Deepak, who earlier worked in DoT as Joint Secretary from 2008 to 2010, is a UP cadre IAS officer of 1982 batch.
Garg, a 1980-batch IAS officer, has been appointed Secretary in Minority Affairs Ministry in place of Amarendra Sinha, who is holding additional charge of the post, an order issued by Personnel Ministry said, without mentioning the reason for Garg’s exit from the high-profile Ministry. Garg had taken over as Telecom Secretary on July 17, 2014 and he is due to retire in November.
Aruna Sharma, at present working in her cadre State Madhya Pradesh, has been appointed as Secretary, Department of Electronics and Information Technology, in place of Deepak.
Krishan Kumar Jalan, who is Central Provident Fund Commissioner in Employees’ Provident Fund Organisation, has been appointed as Secretary, Ministry of labour and Employment and Ministry of Micro, Small and Medium Enterprises.
Shobhana K Pattanayak will be the new Agriculture Secretary in place of Siraj Hussain, who superannuates this month-end.
Avinash K Srivastava, a 1982 batch IAS officer, has been appointed as Secretary, Ministry of Food Processing, the release said. Srivastava is Special Secretary, Department of Agriculture, Cooperation and Farmers Welfare.
Vinod Agrawal, Secretary, National Commission for Scheduled Castes (NCSC), has been made Secretary, Department of Empowerment of Persons with Disabilities. Shyam S Agarwal, Secretary of National Commission for Scheduled Tribes (NCST), has been appointed as Secretary, Ministry of Tribal Affairs.
Tribal Affairs Secretary Arun Jha has been appointed new Secretary of NCSC. Agarwal has been given additional charge of NCST for a period of three months or till the appointment of a regular incumbent, it said.