Amidst a recent development, the union government mandated fresh appointments at the Joint Secretary level to officers from the All-India Services.
Mr. Rajeev Kumar, a 2000-batch Indian Ordnance Factories Service (IOFS) officer, was asked to assume office as the joint secretary in the Ministry of Home Affairs. Ms. Vrunda Manohar Desai, a 2003-batch officer Indian Revenue Service (Income Tax) official, became the new joint secretary in the Ministry of Information & Broadcasting, for a tenure till April 12th, 2027.
IAS Abhishek Bhagotia (2007-batch Assam-Meghalaya cadre) was named joint secretary in Lokpal, while Central Secretariat Service (CSS) officer Mr. Rahul Kashyap was made secretary in the National Commission for Safai Karamcharis (NCSK). Mr. Muthukrishnan Sankaranarayanan (2003-batch IAS officer) was named joint secretary in the Department of Atomic Energy and Mr. Shobhit Gupta (2000-batch IRSEE officer) in the Ministry of Civil Aviation.
Mr. Vimal Anand (2003-batch IRS officer) was made joint secretary, in the Department of commerce, while Ms. Monalisa Dash (2003-batch IFoS officer) became joint secretary in the Ministry of Development of North Eastern Region.
An interesting detail to note here is — This order does not feature any IAS officer from Rajasthan, despite there being a cadre strength of 253 from the state. As of now, only ten young IAS of 2007 were empanelled deputation at the Joint Secretary level, but a majority of them were not interested in leaving their state cadre. Only four Rajasthan cadre IAS officers – Ms. Mugdha Sinha (1999 batch), Mr. Pritam B Yashwant (2003 batch), Mr. Sidharth Mahajan (2003 batch) and Ms. Tina Soni (2007 batch) – are serving as Joint Secretary while two officers – Mr. Mukta Nand Agrawal (2008 batch) and Abhimanyu Kumar (2011 batch) – are serving as Directors.
