After transfer, S C Garg seeks voluntary retirement from government

Move comes a day after Garg was transferred from the finance ministry to the power ministry; Atanu Chakraborty had been named as the new economic affairs secretary

A day after being transferred to the power ministry in a sudden bureaucratic rejig, former finance secretary Subash Chandra Garg is reported to have sought a voluntary retirement from government service.

Garg, who as finance secretary had been at the forefront of the Narendra Modi government’s efforts to get a larger share of the Reserve Bank of India’s (RBI’s) reserves, had been moved from the finance ministry to the power ministry in a sudden move on Wednesday. Atanu Chakraborty, a 1985-batch Gujarat-cadre Indian Administrative Service (IAS) officer, had been named to replace Garg.

In other appointments, the Appointments Committee of the Union Cabinet had approved the name of Anil Kumar Khachi of the Himachal Pradesh cadre as Dipam secretary. The reshuffle in the finance ministry had come less than three weeks after the Union Budget was presented in the Lok Sabha and a day after it was passed by Parliament. 

The government had reshuffled top bureaucrats across 12 ministries, departments and agencies, including secretaries of finance, power, telecommunications, parliamentary affairs, and textiles, among others.