Top FinMin officials reshuffled

Shaktikanta Das moved from revenue to economic affairs department

Even as the Budget-making exercise is underway in the finance ministry, the government on Friday announced major changes to top bureaucratic posts in the ministry. From next month, Revenue Secretary Shaktikanta Das will be the new economic affairs secretary. He will replace Rajiv Mehrishi, who retires on August 31. Financial Services secretary Hasmukh Adhia will replace Das as revenue secretary.

Corporate Affairs Secretary Anjuly Chib Duggal will be the new financial services secretary, went an official statement.

There was no word about the post of finance secretary; as of now, this post is also held by Mehrishi. He had succeeded Arvind Mayaram to the post last year.

While Das is from the Tamil Nadu cadre, Adhia is from the Gujarat cadre and Duggal from the Punjab cadre. Of the three, Das is the most senior.

Traditionally, the most senior of these officials is appointed the finance secretary. As of now, Expenditure Secretary Ratan Watal is the most senior. He is set to retire in February next year.

Das, a veteran in Budget-making, was shifted from the fertiliser ministry to the finance ministry last year, replacing Rajiv Takru. A 1980 batch Indian Administrative Service officer, Das had already served as joint secretary and additional secretary in the Budget division of the finance ministry. Das's first stint in the finance ministry was in 1984.

Under his watch, the revenue department started implementing the new law on unaccounted money passed by Parliament. While the government had drastically revised the Budget target for tax collections in the revised estimate for 2014-15, this time, tax collections have been growing well. For instance, indirect tax collections rose 35 per cent in the first four months of 2015-16.

In the Department of Economic Affairs, Das will have to implement an agreement reached between the finance ministry and the Reserve Bank of India on constituting a monetary policy committee.

In November 2014, Adhia, an officer of the 1981 batch, replaced G S Sandhu as financial services secretary. Adhia played a pivotal role in framing schemes to revamp public sector banks. Recently, the government announced a seven-pronged strategy to increase efficiency of these lenders, called Indradhanush. During his tenure, the financial services department also implemented Prime Minister Narendra Modi's flagship Jan Dhan Yojana. In the revenue department, he will look into the issue of why no many disclosures have been made through the three-month compliance window under the black money law. The department is set to issue a second round of clarifications on the black money Act and the compliance window next week. Besides, a circular on exempting foreign institutional investors from past cases of minimum alternate tax demands is expected soon.

In other appointments announced on Friday, additional secretary in the department of electronics and information technology, Tapan Ray, would take charge as corporate affairs secretary, while Deputy Election Commissioner Vinod Zutshi would be tourism secretary

Sunil Arora, skill development secretary, has been appointed information and broadcasting secretary, while J S Deepak, additional secretary in the department of commerce, will now be secretary in the Department of Electronics and Information Technology.

Vijay Shankar Madan, director-general and mission director of Unique Identification Authority of India, has been appointed secretary, Department of Land Resources.

OTHER TRANSFERS

• Tapan Ray (additional secretary in the department of electronics and information technology) made corporate affairs secretary
• Vinod Zutshi (deputy election commissioner) made tourism secretary
• Sunil Arora (skill development secretary) made I&B secretary
• J S Deepak (additional secretary, department of commerce) made secretary, Deity
• Vijay Shankar Madan (director-general and mission director, UIDAI) made secretary, department of land resources