Rejig changes top man at CBSE, days after Irani exit

Within days of the changes in the Union council of ministers, the government has made close to 50 changes at the bureaucratic level.

Among these is of Rajesh Kumar Chaturvedi, a Madhya Pradesh cadre IAS officer of the 1987 batch, appointed chairman, Central Board of Secondary Education, for almost five years ending December 2020. This new appointment under the human resource development ministry comes soon after Smriti Irani was replaced by Prakash Javadekar as its minister.            

Overall, the bureaucratic changes include those of 19 additional secretaries and 29 joint secretaries. Other prominent shifts include appointment of Pramod Kumar Das, again an MP cadre IAS, as additional secretary (AS), expenditure, in the finance ministry. The 1986 batch officer was joint secretary (JS) in the department of personnel and training (DoPT). He replaces Girish Chandra Murmu, a Gujarat cadre IAS of the 1985 batch, who was earlier moved from expenditure to the department of financial services as AS. During Narendra Modi’s tenure as chief minister of Gujarat, Murmu was his principal secretary. Guruprasad Mohapatra, a Gujarat cadre IAS officer of the 1986 batch, has been named chairman, Airports Authority of India, replacing R K Shrivastava, a Jharkhand cadre IAS of the 1984 batch. Shrivastava was removed from this post earlier this year. Mohapatra is coming from the commerce ministry. Vijay Kumar Dev, a 1987 batch IAS officer of the Union Territories cadre has been appointed deputy election commissioner for five years. He fills a position left vacant by Vinod Zutshi (Rajasthan IAS, 1982), earlier made tourism secretary.

Jayshree Mukherjee (IAS Maharashtra, 1986) has been moved from her cadre as AS, ministry of information and broadcasting. She’s replacing Jitendra Shankar Mathur, who’s been sent to panchayati raj as secretary. Alok Tandon (IAS 1986, UP) has been promoted AS in the cabinet secretariat; he was a JS there.

Sanjeev Gupta (IAS 1985, Himachal) is now AS at the department of industrial policy and promotion. Replacing Shatrughna Singh (IAS 1983, Uttarakhand), who's returned to the home state.