Gargi Kaul appointed Defence Finance Secretary

In a bureaucratic reshuffle, the Centre has appointed Gargi Kaul, a 1984-batch officer of the Indian Audit and Accounts Service (IA&AS), as Secretary, Defence Finance.

Kaul was earlier Financial Advisor, Defence Services in the Defence Ministry.

In an order issued on Tuesday, the Appointments Committee of the Cabinet appointed Sumeet Jerath -- who was earlier Special Secretary and Financial Advisor in the Ministry of External Affairs (MEA) -- as Special Secretary, Cabinet Secretariat.

In the MEA, Jerath was replaced by 1990-batch IAS officer of Jammu and Kashmir cadre Raj Kumar Goyal, who was appointed as Additional Secretary and Financial Advisor.

The government also appointed Prem Kumar Kataria as Additional Secretary in the Textiles Ministry, Anil Kumar Jha as Additional Secretary in the Revenue Department and S.K.G. Rahate as Additional Secretary in the Power Ministry.

The order said that IAS officer Rajesh Kumar Chaturvedi, Member (Admin), National Highways Authority of India (NHAI), will be Additional Secretary and Financial Advisor in the Culture Ministry; and Amitabh Kumar, Additional Director General (Shipping), has been promoted as Director General (Shipping) in the Shipping Ministry.

The Appointments Committee of the Cabinet also approved promotions of various officers working at the level of Joint Secretary to Additional Secretary and above.

In a separate order, the government also approved empanelment of several IAS officers for holding Additional Secretary and equivalent level posts. These included Atal Dulloo (of 1989 batch of J&K cadre), V. Srinivas (of 1989 batch of Rajasthan cadre), Prashant Trivedi (of 1989 batch of Uttar Pradesh cadre) and Monika Sehgal Garg (of 1989 batch of Uttar Pradesh cadre), among others.

--IANS

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