Babus rejig: Pankaj Kumar Mishra appointed FIU chief

Total of 15 new joint secretaries have been appointed to various central government ministries

Senior IRS officer Pankaj Kumar Mishra was appointed chief of Financial Intelligence Unit (FIU), tasked with checking suspicious bank and cash transactions, as part of a major mid-level bureaucratic reshuffle effected on Monday.

A total of 15 new joint secretaries, including Mishra, have been appointed to various central government ministries. Of them, six are IAS officers and rest from other central services.

The Appointments Committee of Cabinet has approved appointment of Mishra as Director, FIU for five years, an order issued by Department of Personnel and Training said.

FIU, which functions under Department of Revenue, is mandated to collect, analyse and disseminate information related to financial transactions suspected to be black money or proceeds of crime.

He has been appointed in place of PK Tiwari, who had completed his tenure in mid-April. Enforcement Director Karnal Singh has been looking after the charge of FIU chief.

Senior IAS officer Rajeev Ranjan has been appointed as Joint Secretary in Department of Expenditure in place of G C Murmu, who had been earlier made Additional Secretary in Department of Financial Services.

Ranjan is a 1989 batch IAS officer of Madhya Pradesh cadre.

IAS officers Amar Nath and A V Patil will be new Joint Secretaries in Ministry of Petroleum and Natural Gas, and Department of Financial Services respectively, it said.

Sanjeev Kumar Chadha, a 1989 batch Indian Forest Service officer of Odisha cadre, has been appointed as Managing Director, National Agricultural Cooperative Marketing Federation of India Ltd (NAFED), the order said.

He has been appointed in place of Ram Subhag Singh, who has been shifted from the post of NAFED MD as Deputy Director General, Unique Identification Authority of India (UIDAI) in Chandigarh.

Maushumi Rudra, an Indian Defence Accounts Service officer, will be new Financial Adviser in National Intelligence Grid (Natgrid) – an intelligence gathering mechanism which is yet to be made operational.

Senior bureaucrats Sonia Sethi and Vasundhara Sinha have been appointed as Additional Director General Foreign Trade in Mumbai and New Delhi respectively, it said.

Audit and Account service officer Subir Mallick will be Additional Financial Adviser and Joint Secretary in Defence Ministry. He is currently JS in the same ministry.

IRS officer Anandarajan V has been appointed as Joint Secretary in Department of Defence.

P N Ranjit Kumar, an Indian Postal Service officer, has been named as new JS in Ayush Ministry.

Dakshita Das, an Indian Railway Accounts Service officer, will be Joint Secretary in Ministry of Road Transport and Highways.

IAS officer Sanjay Ambadas Chahande has been appointed as Deputy Director General, UIDAI, Mumbai. Vandana Gupta, an Indian P&T Finance & Accounts Service officer, will be new JS in National Commission for Women. She is at present Joint Secretary in Ministry of Women and Child Development.