Major shakeup in bureaucracy, new law officers named by Centre

NEW DELHI: The Centre on Wednesday shuffled the posts of several high-ranking bureaucrats while appointing seven new secretaries, 17 additional secretaries and three top law officers.

R Subrahmanyam, a 1985 batch Indian Administrative Service (I AS) officer from Andhra Pradesh cadre, has been elevated as secretary of the department of higher education. He was special secretary in the same department. C. Chandramouli, 1985 batch Tamil Nadu cadre IAS officer, will be the new secretary of department of personnel and training, which handles postings in various cadres.

Tarun Sridhar, (IAS 1984, Himachal Pradesh cadre), will take over as secretary, department of animal husbandry. The reshuffle, ahead of the 2019 elections, is aimed at toning up administration, an official said. Some of the changes were necessitated by vacancies and retirement.

Inder Jit Singh, (IAS 1985, Kerala cadre), will join the Cabinet Secretariat as secretary for coordination, while Surendra Nath Tripathi (IAS 1985, Odisha cadre) will take over as secretary, parliamentary affairs. He was earlier special secretary in the agriculture ministry. P Raghavendra Rao (IAS, 1985, Himachal Pradesh cadre) will be the new secretary in the department of petrochemicals. Anil Gopishankar Mukim (IAS 1985, Gujarat cadre), will head the ministry of mines as secretary.

The government has also appointed three senior advocates as additional solicitors general in the Supreme Court: Vikramjit Bannerjee, Aman Lekhi and Sandeep Sethi. It also extended the terms of four other additional solicitors general-Pinky Anand, PS Narsimha, Tushar Mehta and Maninder Singh.

Rajiv Ranjan Mishra has been appointed as director-general of the National Mission for Clean Ganga.

He is at present additional secretary in housing and urban affairs ministry.