India has reshuffled and appointed secretaries in various key departments and ministries ranging from parliamentary affairs, civil aviation to mines at a time when the relevant industries are seeing major developments.
The Appointments Committee of the Cabinet has approved the appointment of Umang Narula as the parliamentary affairs, according to a government statement. Narula will be replacing Gudey Srinivas, who will move to take up the role of secretary at National Commission for Scheduled Castes under the Ministry of Social Justice and Empowement.
This comes after the government has called for a special session of Parliament for five days starting September 18. However, no official announcement has been made regarding the agenda of the session which will be held days after the G20 Summit in the national capital, Delhi, on September 8 to 10, 2023.
Also Read: India forms committee to explore possibility of 'one nation, one election'
Speculations are rife though that the Narendra Modi government may bring 'One Nation, One Election' Bill in the special Parliament session. This, as the name suggests, means simultaneous state and general elections. This needs a constitutional amendment for which the lawmakers need to meet in a parliament session.
India's Lok Sabha elections are scheduled next year.
Meanwhile, India has also appointed Vumlunmang Vualnam as the secretary of civil aviation ministry and he replaced Rajiv Bansal upon his superannuation on Aug 31. Vualnam was working as an additional secretary in the Department of Economic Affairs under the Ministry of Finance.
Chanchal Kumar, who is an Officer on Special Duty in the civil aviaiton ministry, was earlier supposed to replace Bansal. However, Kumar will now move to the Ministry of Development of North Eastern Region as a secretary.
V. L. Kantha Rao will now take up the role of secretary at the Ministry of Mines, replacing Vivek
While Kantha Rao will vacate his chair as the additional secretary at the Department of Telecommunications, Neeraj Mittal will become the new secretary in this department.
Mittal will take the role as DoT secretary at a time when the Indian government is working on finalising a telecom bill and mulls key decisions around allocation of satellite spectrum.
Bhardwaj will take be appointed as Officer on Special Duty, Ministry of Panchayati Raj, in the rank and pay
Bhardwaj, as the mines secretary, had recently told media that India is preparing to start the auction process for some 100 critical mineral blocks in the next four months.
The government has also appointed S. Krishnan as secretary in the Ministry of Electronics and Information Technology. He replaced Alkesh Kumar Sharma upon his superannuation on August 31.
Krishnan is likely to guide the next phase of the implementation of the country’s ambitious semiconductor mission, which aims to foster a homegrown chip and supporting component ecosystem. The new secretary will also have to be at the forefront of the rollout of the recently enacted Digital Personal Data Protection (DPDP) Act, 2023 implementation guidelines along with the Digital India Bill, which will overhaul the IT Act, 2000.
Ashish Upadhyay, now special secretary and financial advisor in the Ministry of Power, will move to National Commission for Backward Classes as the secretary and replace Rajeev Ranjan upon his superannuation on December 31.
Among other appointments, Katikithala Srinivas was named as new secretary in the minority affairs ministry, Shashi Ranjan Kumar as secretary in Union Public Service Commission and Sanjay Rastogi as additional secretary & financial advisor in the youth affairs & sports ministry.
Source Name : Economic Times