Nitesh Kumar Jha appointed PS to Rajnath Singh

IAS officer Nitesh Kumar Jha has been appointed as Private Secretary to Home Minister Rajnath Singh, about a month after the government had declined his first choice of an IPS officer for the post.
The competent authority has approved the appointment of Jha, a 2002 batch IAS officer of Uttarakhand cadre, who was working as an Officer on Special Duty (OSD), as PS to Rajnath Singh, according to an official order issued by the Department of Personnel and Training (DoPT).
The appointment is for a period of five years or on co-terminus basis with the tenure of the minister, it said.

Jha has been working as the PS of the Home Minister for nearly one week, official sources said.
Uttar Pradesh cadre IPS officer B K Singh, who was Deputy Inspector General in the National Security Guard (NSG), has also joined as the OSD in the Home Minister's office, they said.
A controversy had erupted last month over appointments of PSs to three Union Ministers, including the Home Minister, which were put on hold by Prime Minister Narendra Modi.

Rajnath Singh had proposed IPS officer Alok Singh, who had served in the same capacity to the then External Affairs Minister Salman Khurshid during UPA rule, as his PS. Alok Singh's appointment was not cleared by Modi, the sources said.

The appointments of private secretaries of Minister of State for Home Kiren Rijiju and MoS for External Affairs V K Singh--Abhinav Kumar and Rajesh-- were also not cleared by the Prime Minister, they said.
Abhinav was private secretary to Minister of State Shashi Tharoor and Rajesh was PS to Cabinet Minister Chandresh Kumari Katoch in the UPA government.
The government has issued direction not to allow officers, who had worked as PS to UPA government's ministers, to work in the same capacity with ministers in the NDA government.